Surviving

Hubs: My Hero

~ Kara Mills ~ Leave a comment

A big part of being married and knowing your spouse is knowing what really knocks their socks off. For some women it might be a nice purse or piece of jewelry. For others it may be time away getting pampered (my second choice item). For me however, my first choice is having a clean house. If I walk in and the floors are shining and things are tidied up….look out! This mama is doing a dance! Oh, you’ve emptied the dishwasher…shut your face! The laundry is folded…and put away! Oh go on you say! Pure bliss is what I call that! Continue reading →

Lucky to Be Alive

~ Kara Mills ~ Leave a comment

The kids in our house have been dropping like flies. Aden was in the ER for his usual asthma stuff, which was triggered by a bad cold. It’s so usual that the respiratory therapist even recognized us. And gave us the same lecture she gave us the last time we were there 2 months ago. Clearly it’s not really working because we were back again. Sunday morning I stayed home with all of the boys instead of going to church and it was a good thing I did, Elijah woke up with a 102.7 fever. Nice. Did I mention Asher was battle a nice little cold/ear infection too? Oh yeah, and hubs has mid-terms this week. Oh, and another thing, my boss is in town this week because it is performance appraisal time at work. Nothing says “I want to advance my career” like “I need to reschedule my performance appraisal, and take a day off because my kids are sick and my husband has mid-terms”. I may be misguided and presumptuous by saying this, but the thought did cross my mind that if I was a SAHM it might be a little easier. At least I would have one less thing to schedule around- work. But, I really do love my job. Continue reading →

Valentine’s Day Boxes

~ Kara Mills ~ Leave a comment

So there is a thing here in Minnesota, or probably everywhere, that I’m just learning about with the boys now in elementary school. I don’t recall this from Michigan, at least from friends that had kids in elementary school, but of course Pinterest didn’t really exist when we lived there- at least not like it does today. Valentine’s Day boxes. The joy for every Pinterest obsessed mom and the dread for every mom just making ends meet with getting homework done and lunches packed. Now, for those of you who might not quite understand the whole box occult, I would tell you to go to Pinterest and look it up, but you would be gone for a few hours and forget to finish reading my post. Continue reading →

Dirty Laundry

~ Kara Mills ~ Leave a comment

Would all the moms out there who picked some piece of dirty clothing at some point during the day please raise your hand? Okay, for the 3 moms out there that did not, please let me know what your tricks are. Here is what happened in our house today- and know this is a fairly standard occurrence. I get up to get in the shower and realize that there is a small mountain of clothes on the bathroom floor. Continue reading →

Can You Have It All?

~ Kara Mills ~ Leave a comment

Can you have it ALL? This topic can provoke some pretty intense feelings and certainly some very strong opinions. The timeless debate of whether a mom should work or not. And, if you do- can you have it all? Now, I’m not saying that Stay At Home Mom’s (SAHM) don’t work. Anyone who has children knows that is rewarding but exhausting work. I’m talking about if a woman CAN or SHOULD work if she has kids- is it possible to have both? Continue reading →

Starting Over

~ Kara Mills ~ Leave a comment

So, a few weeks ago I was going about my normal routine of cleaning the house and all that fun stuff that I LIVE to do on Saturdays and I had to marvel at the sight in our living room. Asher was playing on a blanket on the floor- really just rolling all over the place like the floor was on a steep decline. The older boys were playing Xbox and actually not fighting. I had to savor this moment. But, it got me to thinking. Elijah is 9, Aden is 7 and Asher is 6 months old. We essentially started over when we had Asher. Hello diapers, hello formula, hello sleepless nights. Continue reading →

The Med School Process – From the Wife’s Perspective

~ Kara Mills ~ 7 Comments

So, by now you know that hubs is in medical school. As of last week, we’ve he has survived his first semester! This might not sound like a big deal to most, but med school is part of why I started blogging. You see, when he was going through the long, tiring process of taking classes and applying for med school, I had looked all over for websites, blogs or whatever I could find to guide us through it. Most blogs were outdated. I could only attribute it to the fact they must have made it and no longer had a need to blog about med school right? I wanted to better understand the process and how I, as the working spouse, could properly support hubs while he was going through. I decided that when he started med school, I would use this as a creative outlet, as well as hopefully an outlet for other spouses/significant others of med students. Or those considering med school. Continue reading →

Recovering from Christmas

~ Kara Mills ~ 2 Comments

Christmas

I don’t know about you, but this Christmas seemed to go by in a blink of an eye this year. Weeks before Christmas, I was scrambling to get gifts together while hubs was finishing his first semester of med school (post about that to come later). This was our first year celebrating Christmas without any family around. Part of me was thinking that might make it more relaxing- no trucking all over the place – 2 hours here, 3 hours there. But, on the other hand, what could possibly be fun and memorable for the kids? I mean for us – hubs and me – it’s a little less magical than when we were younger. I remember having such fond memories of Christmas as a child. Time with family, Christmas lights, candlelight services at church, Christmas carols, and the list goes on. For our kids, they know that Christmas is about the birth of Jesus and we’ve had great traditions with our church to celebrate. We’ve just never had a steady tradition for our home celebration. When we lived in Michigan and the boys were really little, we did the driving all over the place thing. Now that we live in Minnesota, it’s not that easy.

So, as we were nearing the holidays and as I began really thinking about what we were going to do this year, I began feeling the pressure. You know, the pressure to make everything so perfect that your kids will brag about how great their Christmas was. Now, we are on a tight budget so I knew that they would not be bragging about crazy iPad/Xbox One/Wii U gifts, I had to “wow” them with an experience. I had that pressure, I’ll call it the Pinterest pressure, mounting. Continue reading →