Posted on

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!

Post to Twitter

Posted on

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

monat

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 blog 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!

 

Post to Twitter

Posted on

Stuff Jenny Forgot

Can you hear me now?

I think I remember how to do this! I only had to reset my password like 18 times but I am IN and we are BACK! If only someone had tried to steal our identity and go viral before now, perhaps our blog wouldn’t be defunct. Oh well! Big shout out to Lyz or whatever her name was for spurring us into action.

But anyway, we are alive and well and have been doing lots of fun things for the past couple years. Jenny mentioned some, but I thought I’d try to make her Non-Comprehensive List slightly less non-comprehensive, so I took a stroll through our Instagram feeds.

My LORD that girl takes a lot of pictures of herself.

At least she doesn’t mind looking like a moron in some of them.

Anyway.

Let’s see, what did we do for the past two years?

Well, we had two more editions of #SpreadsheetThanksgiving.

I’ve come a long way since the American cheese and spaghetti crock pot incident, people.

Our kids went trick or treating together. It was the 14th year in a row for these two.

Can you believe that? Me either. I would have been crying if I had not decided to take a red solo cup with me this year. Do you know how much wine fits in one of those things? A LOT. I think I stunned the neighbors by actually, like, talking to them as we walked through the ‘hood. Wine makes me FEEL THE THINGS, evidently.

Jenny’s been through several different phases of obsession since we’ve last talked. This photo demonstrates two such stages.

Someday I’m going to make a list of all the things she’s been enamored by over the years. CVS, coupons, mascara, the list is endless. I’m sure many of you could help me out with this endeavor.

She never tires, though, of her own face! And it’s only gotten worse now that she is in love with her hair.

Karma is a funny thing, though, because all the time I’ve spent making fun of Jenny’s vanity has come back to bite me in the @ss in the form of my 14 year old daughter, whose prized possession – a gigantic floor-to-ceiling mirror – brought Jenny to tears.

Well there you have it, the highlights, at least as far as we remember them. Thank you for the warm welcome back to our little corner of the internet, friends. We’re glad to be home.

Post to Twitter