Mommin' It Up!

June 24, 2018

That Time I Quit My Job

If you’ve been around this blog for awhile, you might remember that, during my many years of stay-at-home mom-hood, I would often tell Emily that “work is for suckers.”

Then a few years ago, I did not heed my best advice, and I went and got a job. Only part-time though! And actually, it was perfect for me. So all was well and good and this particular work was NOT for suckers.

And THEN…I liked the job so much that I thought after Jonah went to kindergarten, I would like to go full time. Be a REAL employee, get benefits, etc. I really wanted to further my career and I thought this was the way to do it.

Long story short, after about seven months of full time work, Mark Zuckerburg of Facebook fame decided in August 2017 that he was going to drastically reduce the reach that Facebook business pages got -especially if they linked out to articles that took people OFF of Facebook.

Which is exactly what I did all day – write articles for the website I was editor for, then post them on Facebook so people would click off to Facebook and go to said website.

So, after August 2017, my job got a whole lot harder. I powered through it for about 10 more months, but the added stress was no bueno. To write article after article and have NO ONE read it…pretty disheartening. Maybe once a quarter I’d find a glitch in the matrix and I’d have one go viral, but it was seriously just luck. When you publish 4 articles a day, 5 days a week, and have one or two out of over 200 really do well…it’s demoralizing. ESPECIALLY when you used to have success on a much more regular basis than that and everyone thought you were great at your job. WOMP WOMP.

In April Bobby’s Lexus dealership got bought out. This, while not all bad, has added a lot of stress to his work load (he is shop foreman now). So, this whole spring we were both VERY stressed. With two VERY STRESSED parents, our household wasn’t functioning well. Something had to GIVE.

So, I asked my work if I could go back to part-time. Back to being a contractor. Have a little less stress and more flexible time. And they said YES!!! I am soo soo blessed by that. To accomplish this, I had to formally resign my full time job, and sign a contract to be an independent contractor. Now I am ONLY writing, not managing the Facebook page or the website traffic, and after two weeks of having that off my plate, I can say I made the right choice. I’m so happy to still be writing, which I love to do, and on parenting subjects I am passionate about. I am also happy to be working less hours, so I actually have less child care and MORE TIME to spend with my kids this summer, and to start managing our household better.

I’m also hashtag blessed to have more time to put into the MONAT hair care business Emily and I are doing together! If you are curious as to what that is all about, you can request to join our Facebook group. I’m also doing beauty product reviews (earlier this week I announced a NEW FAVORITE MASCARA!) there, too!

Finally, I’m so excited to be able to blog HERE more. I have missed writing just for me, and to crack Emily up, a LOT. But working full time left me zero creativity to spare. I can’t wait to spin you some more yarns about what my family is up to these days.

So, yeah, I no longer think work is for suckers, but I do think I’ve found my happy place with work and I’m thankful!

May 25, 2018May 25, 2018

Look What You Made Me Do, Or In Which I Convince Emily to Do My Bidding

You guys. I turned 40 last September, and Emily’s about to turn 39 on Monday (and like seriously, the ENTIRE COUNTRY is taking the day off for her birthday, don’t they know the big one is NEXT year? GAH.)

Anyway. What this means is, I’ve spent almost exactly 39 years trying to boss Emily around and get her to do what I want her to do. (It was a lot easier when she was still in diapers, see?)

At times this has worked better than others. Like, that one time when I decided to have a baby and it made HER want to have a baby, and we both had babies really close together, THAT WAS AMAZING.

And then, that time when she let her family convince her to get a dog and I tried my hardest to persuade her to NOT GET THAT DUMB DOG…well, that one didn’t work out very well for EITHER of us. Because ugh that dog still annoys me every time I go over there ALL THESE YEARS later, and really, if you have been reading this here ~~trainwreck b~~log for any amount of time, you know it’s ALL. ABOUT. ~~ME.~~ the precious cousin relationship.

So speaking of me, though…LOOK AT MY HAIR!

I mentioned a couple posts back that I started using MONAT when my HAIRLINE STARTED RECEDING!

You guys, I CANNOT BE BALD. So I started using it in December, because supposedly it grows ya hair back.

Within 4 weeks I found that it was TRUE, it does grow ya hair back. WHEEE!!

I have no good “before” pics of my hairline because I was constantly trying to hide it. BUT, I do have this one from last fall where you can really tell. And the after on the right was taken like two weeks ago.

But it’s not just my hairline…MONAT has transformed the entire health of my hair. The top picture her was air dried a year ago, and the bottom air dried about two weeks ago.

Umm…HELLO? This stuff works. If you want to know how and why you can comment here, email me jenny at momminitup dot com or join my Facebook group.

But that’s not even the point of this post!!

The point is to tell you, that as soon as I realized it was GROWING MY HAIR, I told Em that she HAS TO USE IT, because she’s always wanted MOAR HAIR her entire adult life.

And, for once in my life, it was NOT hard to convince Emily to do what I told her to do! She started using MONAT too and quickly fell in love with it and what it is doing for HER hair.

Even though, for SOME reason, she is still not obsessed with taking hair selfies. Sigh. Maybe one day…

Anyhoo. Here’s the BEST PART.

Even though Emily is a full time working Vice President of everything, she saw the value of MONAT so much that she said YES when I asked her to do the MONAT business with me.

So, like, we are totally MONATIN’ IT UP now!! Together!! Yaaaaay!

I seriously can’t wait til we are driving our matching white cadillacs down the road together and earning fancy cruises with staterooms that have fainting couches. I’m sure that’s all to come, but in the meantime, we’ll just be admiring our hair every time we pass a mirror, and also helping everyone else with their hair problems.

Thinning? WE GOTCHU. Breakage? All over it. Frizz? On the case. Hair that just WILL NOT GROW? We’ll tell you what you need! Monat is PLANT-BASED, y’all and free of waxes, silicones, parabens, glutens, and all the other bad crap most of us put on our hair every day.

So, my lovelies, if you are at ALL curious, do one of three things (or both) – 1) hope on over to my Facebook group Real Mom Beauty with Jenny Rapson and sometimes Emily and/or 2) visit our Monat site which is http://momminitup.mymonat.com/ or 3) just email me at jenny at momminitup.com.

Emily and I promise never to pressure you into purchasing magic shampoo. We will just give you the info you need to know IF it is what will solve your hair probs. We will still be your friends if you don’t “join our team” – PINKIE PROMISE.

We suuure do hope we can help you with your hair – if you need it. But even if we can’t, at least you know that I MADE EMILY GO INTO BUSINESS WITH ME!!

There’s NO WAY she could ever regret this….right??

*** P.S. JUST FOUND OUT that there is a HUGE FLASH SALE on MONAT this weekend from Friday 5/25-Sunday 5/27! Join our group or email me for details!!! 5) Enter your personal info and check out – add code SUMMERLUV in the coupon code box!

April 29, 2018

This Is What Happens When You Get Old

You guys, in the last 2 years since being I’ve been an inconsistent blogger, y’all have missed out on a lot in my life. Lucky for you, MUCH of what you missed including me complaining about the different old lady ailments I have suffered. The path to 40 has been a bit BUMPY. I will spare you the lurid details FOR NOW (mwahahaha) but my various problems have included a bad back injury that I still have to baby, a bad flare-up of the DeQuervain’s syndrome I’ve had in my right hand/arm since I gave birth to Joshua fourteen LONG YEARS AGO, and various battles with ANXIETY, which has dogged me since I fought a bout with depression in 2008-2009 (which as you may recall I DID chronicle here on this blog).

All this to say, I now take a lot of SUPPLEMENTS, mostly in pill form, and use essential oils to help with my pain, mental health, and my stupid hormones.

I get really weary of taking pills, but they help! I take MSM for my hand pain, DIM for my hormonal acne, magnesium for my anxiety, and a good probiotic like we all shoud.

But there is ONE thing I take, that is not a pill, PRAISE THE LORD. It’s a supplement in powder form that I put in my breakfast shake, yogurt, coffee, or whatever food/drink I have at the time when I remember I need to take it. It’s Calcium + D, which has 1000 mg of calcium which women my age reallly need, and 1000 IU of Vitamin D3, which I really need for a variety of reasons but mostly my mental health. Living in Ohio, most of us here honestly don’t enough Vitamin D, and a deficiency there is no bueno.

I would not have heard of this godsend of a product if my friend Haley had not told me about it. The company she works for (who I used to work for) has Fit Formula Wellness, the makers of Calcium + D, as a client, so she asked me if I wanted to try it. I said yes because I LOVE HALEY, but to be honest, I wasn’t even THINKING about it for myself at first, but for Jonah. Turns out it’s great for both of us. Let me ‘splain.

As I mentioned in my last post, Jonah goes to the Brain Balance Center for some of his issues and he is doing ah-maz-ing. Part of the BB program is a special diet, and Jonah has to be on 1000 IU of Vitamin D3 for it. BUT WAIT, none of the vitamins of supplements your kids have to be on for this can contain any form of SWEETENER, so it’s hard to find one that is a) compliant, and b) the child will actually EAT.

Fit Formula Wellness is LITERALLY the perfect solution. I put it in Jonah’s applesauce, his chili at dinner, his dairy-free yogurt, etc and he eats it up and doesn’t know it’s there. ALSO, as you may have caught in the sentence above, the diet he is on is also dairy-free, so he really needs that extra calcium. He has refused any other type of milk (almond, coconut, etc.) so he literally only drinks water – which is fine, but also rather devoid of calcium.

Long story long, eventually Fit Formula Wellness heard of my love for their product (through Haley, natch) and asked me to be an influencer for them. I was all, “Um, ok, but I don’t blog anymore.” And they were all “That’s cool, you post lots of other places on social media so we want you anyway!” And I was all, “AWW that’s so nice!”

And then I started blogging again a few week later, so I figured I’d write a bit to tell you all how much I love it, AND AND AND give you a coupon code! ‘Cause you KNOW I loves me a deal.

So, go grab a box of Calcium + D from Fit Formula Wellness for 50% off. Normally $14.99, get yours for HALF THAT here!! You can get it for EVEN LESS if you subscribe monthly, it’s just $12.99 and you get 50% off that too! And it will last you a month, and you will LOVE it. The coupon code is “jenny” – ALL lower case.

Oh and I should probably say, I guess this is a sponsored post. Even though I’ve already fulfilled my influencer requirements earlier in the program with Facebook and Instagram posts, just to be on the safe side, so the FCC doesn’t try to squeeze blood from this super dry stone. Opinions are of course, my own.

SO let’s RECAP:

I’m old an decrepit but I’m managing it naturally and it’s working
My friend Haley told me about an awesome product so now I’m telling you
I love Calcium + D and you should get some
Use coupon code jenny for 50% off til May 10th
My 7-year-old son gulps it down and has no idea so it’s also upped my Mom Ninja Skillz

That is all for now my friends! Come back next week and I’ll tell you all about my AGE SPOTS! #SoOld #SoSoOld