best ever hot cocoa recipe

I love getting crafty and I love it even more when I'm paid to do it. Everyone is working on projects at the office (it's slow season) and I offered to make some gifts for agents, attorneys and clients. There is always a lot of baked goods going around and it is so hard not to eat cookies and donuts when they are sitting around the office all day. 
I wanted to do something cute that can be taken home and used over time.  I decided to come up with my own recipe for hot cocoa and put the mix in mason jars. 
The best hot cocoa recipe ever:
2.5 cups instant non-fat milk 1 cup cocoa powder 2 cups powdered sugar 1 teaspoon corn starch 1 teaspoon salt 2 pinches of cinnamon pinch of cayenne pepper
Mix ingredients well and store in air-tight container. To serve, mix with hot water. I preferred about 2 tablespoons of cocoa to water ratio, Joe likes his more like 2 to 1 water to cocoa.
Top with marshmallows and miniature chocolate chips for fun!

emmy's teacher

I hesitated to publish this. But this is my blog about life (and Emmy) and I write things down so I don't forget them and so that Emmy will know what life was like before her memory started saving things for her. 
 Emmy's teacher left the daycare yesterday. I am not sure if she was fired or quit or if that all happened at once. What happened between her and her boss is not my business so I won't speculate.  
But I loved her teacher and I am so sad that she is gone. She was hard on the kids and I knew that but I also liked it. Emmy's first week with her was rough but once she adjusted, her development seemed to take off. Her teacher and I talked every day... about Emmy's progress, the words she was learning, how she was getting along with her friends, what her favorite toys and activities are and even just the silly things Emmy did that day. Basically, she filled me in on everything I was missing out on and it was the highlight of my day. 
Just yesterday I asked for her thoughts on Emmy's verbal and physical development. I think Emmy is doing great but I like to hear from her teacher about her progress so I can make sure that Joe and I are doing our part to help out at home. She offered tips and we talked about the other kids in her class and the affection in her voice made me go soft over them too. I drove away feeling so happy about Emmy being in daycare, learning more than most kids her age and having friends that squeal her name when she arrives every morning. 
She was the first teacher Emmy had that was as good with adults as she is with children. I felt a connection with her and I wish I knew her last name so I could find her and tell her that she was good for Emmy and I am sad that she is gone. I want to tell her that it may not have worked out for her at this daycare but she should not be down on herself, and I would tell her my similar story in case it might make her feel better. 
 I had a very short-term career once. It lasted 6 months and I wish I could block it out of my memory. My boss was irrational, immature and rude. He yelled at me when I made a mistake, even if my only mistake was not catching his.  He would listen to me talk to someone on the phone then call me in his office to tell me how he would have said it. I hated to talk to anyone because I was so nervous that I would say something wrong.  I kept a daily journal of every little thing he asked me to do and check off what I got done so he couldn't lie and say that I forgot something. His constant critique was so frustrating, I cried on a weekly basis and I was no fun to be around after work. 
Finally, one day he was yelling at me and I started yelling back. It wasn't the first time I had stood up for myself, but I remember my vision getting kinda blurry and having that "out of body" experience. He told me that he thought I should "take some time off to think about whether or not I want my job" and I told him, "I don't need time to think about it, I quit". I remember the words coming out as if someone else had said them. I looked at my desk, hands shaking, face numb, trying to think of what I owned on my desk and how quickly I could get my hands on those things and run.  I jumped in my car, called Joe and sobbed.
It took a few weeks for me to find a new job, I almost left the industry altogether. I blamed the stress of the job on the nature of the business. I started working for my current boss who is 75(ish) years old and just about the smartest, kindest person in the world. He knew me from a previous job and trusted my work ethic and was eager to get me started. He trusted me completely with decisions, he didn't micromanage me, boss me around or ever once remind me who he was. He didn't have to. I would do anything for him, I pushed myself, I learned how to do my job more efficiently and then his job so I could be more helpful and when I inevitably made mistakes, he would offer support and we would find a solution together. He let me grow, showed me respect, increased my responsibility then compensated me fairly. I can't imagine ever wanting to leave this job.
Everyone here works together. We have zero drama and there is simply an overall goal of customer satisfaction & getting loans closed. I used to look back on those 6 months and think about how I should have handled my boss differently. Instead of crying, I should have calmly communicated that his expectations were irrational and I may not be the right person to work for him if he doesn't want to trust me to think for myself. I know that there were times that I was defensive with him and it was hard for me to admit if I did make a mistake. I own up to mistakes quickly now. I work on fixing them and I move on, no one gets upset, no one gets blamed. And, if my boss asks me to do something, I may voice my disagreement with him but I will do it his way because at the end of the day, this company has his name on it, not mine. 
I hope Emmy's teacher can learn from this experience and I really hope that she is able to find a new opportunity where she can apply her skills with children. Emmy and I are surely gonna miss her.

movie night

This is the exact moment Emmy first watched The Little Mermaid. 

 This movie just came out of Disney's "vault" and I felt like a little kid on Christmas morning opening my amazon box when I got home. I have prepped Emmy for this moment by singing her the "Part of your World" song pretty much ever since she was born. This is my favorite kid's movie of all time and even though Joe whined about me starting it... Emmy has been asleep for half an hour and we are still watching it... actually, he is watching it and I'm typing. 

Today was such a great day. There was no particular reason that this day should be good but it was. I spent most of yesterday trying to appease an irrational child. She had a fever Sunday night and threw up three times so I couldn't take her to school. I still had to work so I spent most of the day trying to give her everything she wanted except the one thing she really wanted which was my attention. 

I struggle so much with my job on those days. I have the luxury of working from home with unlimited sick days but I can't really give 100% to work or my kid and they both need me. 

And, I really love them both so much.

I had two loans close today and I have gotten to know both families so well that I was a little sad to see them close and move on with their life. How weird is that? I was happy for them too but now I won't have any reason to talk to them! It did feel good to get them off "the books" though. I have such a love/hate relationship with the cyclical nature of my job. Most loans close around the end of the month - at the same time that most people make offers on their next home. So, I spend one week of the month losing my mind starting new loans and closing current loans. That was mostly last week. This week is the exciting new loan part. Everyone is so happy and the loan paperwork appears simple. 

It's hard for the joy of the new purchases and contracts not to get contagious. Especially during the holidays. Today the seller was telling the buyer how many pounds of candy to buy for the neighborhood kids and were bragging about the local football team. Maybe it's because I have such happy memories of my childhood but I just started getting emotional of the new little family and all the memories they would soon be making.

Plus, Emmy was riding a high today. She felt so much better than she did yesterday, it was all smiles and dancing and cuddling after work. She has started giving us big hugs and kisses. I will scoop her up and give her neck lots of kisses until it tickles and she can't stand it any longer. She tries to do it back and she mostly just hot breathes on me and it actually tickles so I can't help but laugh. I know these moments won't last forever but there is just so much affection in our family. 

I just can't stand how much I love it. 

the working mom

A working mom's daily load...

I've been thinking about this post a lot lately.

As Emmy is getting older, she is becoming more and more fun. She is watching us move around the room, she gets excited when we talk to her and hold her. This morning, I didn't want to let her go. Joe was taking her to "school" and I thought about my day and almost decided to stay and work from home with her.

But that's really hard to do. I have a great job, I probably take it for granted sometimes. I basically work for myself, I work hard and all of my work is my own. I try to have a good teamwork attitude and help others where I can but I am not required to be in the office anymore. Oddly enough, I like being in the office. I am good at my job and I know that's because I work hard and I certainly work better without distractions.

Staying at home has never been an option for me. I have the utmost respect for women who stay at home. I know from the short time I stayed home to recover and take care of Emmy that it is hard work. Believe it or not, it's not all watching "Ellen" and the "Today Show" (this is what I was expecting) babies are work. 

Worst of all, I found staying at home to be unrewarding.

There. I said it. Being a mom didn't give me enough gratitude. Does that make me selfish? Probably. 

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed my time with Emmy but at the end of the day no one had said "thank you" or "great job on that diaper, you really cleaned her butt so efficiently!". 

At my job, I am complimented and appreciated. That's where my confidence comes from: my work. I learned to have a good work ethic at a young age. My mom always worked, she taught us to work too. Sometimes I had wished she would stay home more but that wasn't really until I was older. Especially when I was in middle school, old enough that my sister and I could be left at home alone but too young to go anywhere on our own. I really hated the summers because they were so boring. My parents left for work and Courtney and I spent the day playing dolls, watching tv and cleaning the house (yes, we started the day with a list of chores and had no idea that this isn't what ALL kids did during the summer. We were suckers). 

I'm not telling this sad, sad story to get your sympathy (unless, of course, you are my mom reading this and then yes, mom, you ROBBED me of my childhood, how dare you?) Oh, BTW, can I have 10 bucks?

This is about being a good mother.

I did learn from a few of my parent's mistakes. They got caught up in work. They came home stressed out, exhausted and no matter how much they loved us, we felt their tension and it made us a little afraid of them. We were afraid we might upset them more so we scurried around cleaning the house so they wouldn't get mad. I don't want to do that, I hope to find an inner-peace with a messy house soon because the pressure I put on myself to keep it clean is not worth it. 

My parents were young and they have warned my sister and I about making this mistake. My mom is still a work-a-holic and I have some of her tendencies but I make time for Emmy and I leave the stress at work. I spend my mornings lying in bed with Emmy, watching the Today Show and sipping coffee while tickling her toes. My rule is that as long as she is awake, we are a happy family with no problems. Once she goes to sleep, I'm back on my laptop sending e-mails and crunching numbers. 

To all the working moms out there: it's okay, we are good moms too. 
To all the stay at home moms: thank you, you're doing a great job.

My first day back to work, Emmy's first day at daycare