My sister was trying to get me to switch from Yankee to Scentsy. My husband and I use to have shelves upon shelves of Yankee candles and a scent in each room of the house too. My sister would tell me Scentsy is more you, it’s a healthier candle approach and the scents are amazing, etc.
I would say, “Nope, not letting go of my favorite scents!” and to be honest I still have quite a few! 😉
… but I finally gave in, and I bought Scentsy one Summer day, then a scent sold me to Scentsy. “Summer Holiday!” Yep, I was SOLD!
So, from then on Scentsy was our new candle scentsational scent of fun. Not to mention their super cute WARMERS too!!!
Well, one day I am smelling the scents and (as many know, I am gluten free and labeled, undiagnosed celiac), so I smelled a scent called “Blueberry Cheescake” and suddenly I now wanted a Blueberry 🫐 Muffin! – lol 🤷🏻♀️
So, I added this scent to my order. When it arrived, I put it in my warmers and loooved it. My husband and our girls 💗💗💗 loved it too! So, I ordered more right away, and after spending close to $200 on Scentsy in one single month. I joked and said, “Maybe I should just sell this stuff at this point!” The girl I bought from responded with, “‘You should, you alone would keep yourself in business!” lol 🤔
So, asked a few more questions and talked it over with my husband and I signed on that Month as a Scentsy Consultant and began my little business in June of 2019. So, it’ll be three (3) years this June. It is just something small I have on the side of mommy life, family life, etc. Something part-time for me to have and it brings in some extra cash too! (I actually make more now than when I was working part-time, while pregnant with our first little love 💗)
Scentsy is slower right now though, but it’s still busy too. Not as busy as it was in the beginning of Covid, but once people’s smells were effected (like this gal) and the gas prices increased. People slowed down with it, but it’s a great product, and it’s a healthier candle approach too. So, if you’re interested in this “wickless candle approach, that’s cleaner, safer and healthier!” Contact me and if you want a part-time little business, contact me too! 🥰
Okay, I am trying, I am … I am trying to drink more water. Hydration is key and “OH!” to the times of me being dehydrated! I was on average drinking maybe 8-20 ounces of water, a day. Now, my goal is to drink 50-60 ounces daily.
I am on week two (2) or maybe three (3) 🤔, I believe. I can do this and stick with this too! 😉 To be honest, I start this up and I do good for about a week, but then I usually stop. So, trying to stick with it this time …
I was told by many that you are to drink half of your body weight in ounces.
That to me, I was like, there is NO WAY I can drink that much WATER daily! Where my husband drinks like a gallon of water daily. Drinking a good amount of water, just isn’t as easy as one would think? 🤔 Especially, if you are not use to it (like me.)
Here was my normal daily routine of drinking beverages. I would wake-up and drink my morning coffee, and then I may sip on water here and there. Then I would have a cup of hot tea in the afternoon, then I finally would drink water with dinner and before bed. So, I was drinking fluids, but WATER, not so much. So, I am consciously trying to drink 30 ounces of water before 12:00 noon and then the next 30 ounces before sleepy time.
I keep reminding myself (so I stay motivated), that you are flushing out toxins!!! Try it, it helps … 🤷🏻♀️😉
You see, in the last ten (10) years I have learned much about my body, more in regards to my health and how my body responds to certain things, like food. I mean, once our first little love was six (6) months old … (on Christmas Eve to be exact.) We were leaving a family party and my mouth was suddenly in pain. I initially thought, I must have burned my mouth on something. As the days, weeks, months progressed, the pain intensified!
My tongue was sooo sore and my mouth would always have canker sores and this was only one (1) of my new found issues/symptoms. However, it was one of the WORST too. I also had joint pain, fibromyalgia pain, GI issues, weird anxiety, a rash on my upper arms, etc. I thought for awhile, (and certain Doctors confirmed) it was hormonal , postpartum … after all I just had a baby. 🤷🏻♀️
Today, I am gluten free and labeled “Undiagnosed Celiac.” Mainly because I just get too sick from gluten, and I can’t eat it long enough to be tested. (To be honest, I no longer need to be told I have Celiac Disease.) I tried a few years back to go through testing, (per my Doctor.) First step, was to go on a gluten challenge. I made it to only, day three (3), goal was to eat gluten for twenty-one (21) days. 😬 After dealing with pain, (fetal position pain) off and on for over 24 hours and ongoing GI issues, my Doctor said to stop eating gluten. When I went into the Doctor’s office, he said, “Clearly gluten is no good for you, so DO NOT eat it! Listen to your body, and if you need a diagnosis … I am diagnosing you with Undiagnosed Celiac!”
I also have a family history of Celiac Disease, Crohn’s Disease, Diverticulitis, Thyroid Disease, etc. (which many or maybe all 🤷🏻♀️ are autoimmune) So, it was inevitable that I would end up with something at some point. I mean, I have been told that I have had many things, since I was a kid. I was diagnosed and placed into categories like IBS, Lactose Intolerant, Interstitial Cystitis, Keratosis Pilaris, etc. All come to find out, are are linked to Celiac Disease and can mimic or even cause these symptoms, and when I gave birth to our first little love, WOW to the symptoms!!! Hence the beginning of me, going gluten free. (When she was around eight (8) months old to be exact.) Then, I ended up pregnant again with our 2nd little love, when she was just ten (10) months old, so I stopped my gluten free diet per my OBGYN’s request. At the time I was deficient in certain vitamins too, so she put me on a prescription prenatal vitamin. She explained to me that eating gluten while pregnant, may be more beneficial to the baby and it may not bother you while pregnant too. She explained that staying gluten free while baby is in utero, could actually bring forth an allergy to baby earlier, if not exposed to gluten. So, I ate gluten (and it was delicious) and I was not bothered by it either. 🙏🏼 However, after our 2nd little love was born, WOW again to the symptoms. So, I officially went gluten free when she was just a few months old and I have been gluten free ever since.
I tried to eat gluten again while pregnant with our 3rd little love, but at this point I no longer could, because it made me sick. More so with fibromyalgia pain, joint pains, tongue pain, canker sores, etc. and here’s the crazy thing too, our littlest love came out with Eczema and still has episodes of Eczema. So, could it be because she wasn’t exposed to gluten while in utero like my one OBGYN explained. 🤷🏻♀️🤔
I have been doing research too on different foods, plant based foods, avocados, red meat, protein, etc. Trying to figure all out. As I have been researching and looking into nutrition, as a whole. Foods are actually medicines for our body, so like “eating” is hugely important. Helps with so much from our sleep, anxiety, to hormonal health, etc.
I never looked at food this way, I looked at it as, “I am hungry, is it dinner time, okay eat!” or “I am NOT eating that!”
So, like I said, looking into nutrition more so now. As well as HYDRATION. Also, fitness, and getting back into it because I just feel better over all when I am working out. Trying to run more, walk the miles too, just basically loving cardio, but as we all know …adult life, parent life = busy life!
I started up Wellness Wednesdays, a few weeks ago. I wanted to try to take fifteen (15) minutes to an hour or more to do something for “myself”, like wash my hair, maybe a mani/pedi at home, facial, take a bubble bath, etc.
Just a moment to pause …
So, I had a “day of rest” yesterday for Wellness Wednesday. After a Doctor’s Appointment that went well on Tuesday, praise God. 🙏🏼 I said to myself, “Just relax today, take a bath, blog again and just be, and don’t feel guilty. You owe this to yourself!” 🙏🏼
You see … Mommy life, and life in general. I just often do not schedule in those little things that I once did for myself, before having babies. Life is just busy differently now, so things like hair and nails aren’t a constant anymore.
So, for example, I normally get my hair done maybe twice a year. (So here was the deal, I haven’t had a hair cut, gosh in like 6-9 months, maybe longer. I mean, I did get to the salon in October, to get a quick gloss because my hair was lighter over the Summer … Yes, I actually for the first time EVER was at the hair salon three (3) times over the Summer going lighter.) So, anyways, my roots were now like 2 inches long, so I decided to go back to brunette (and now, not sure if I’ll go blonder again this Summer. 🤷🏻♀️)
Now back to being busy, so I often will schedule a hair appointment and then cancel, schedule, then cancel. No worries though, I finally made an appointment and actually went too. Just wanted to get my hair cut and I ended up taking a good 4 inches off, maybe more 😉 so back to self care, I was actually getting my nails done for a few months in the fall, because I told myself, “You can do something little like this for yourself” … but now I am over that (not a surprise) so stopped with that all together because my nails just got too weak.
Wanted to explain something, I have never been “that” kind of girl. Who’s always at a salon. I just cannot sit at salons for hours 🤷🏻♀️ I think I am just too type A. 🤷🏻♀️ I mean I try, I do, I try, but then I am like okay, no! I don’t feel like sitting in here for an hour or more.
However, I do want to have moments (from time to time) of feeling pampered, so I love to get a pedi, and maybe I will start scheduling facials? I am trying to learn to go to the salons more … especially now that Covid is lifting. 🙏🏼 (we are praying that is … )
So maybe, I’ll schedule them in from time to time now, on Wellness Wednesdays. 😉
Okay, here goes, Happy Monday … as you have seen, I am starting an actual blog. A blog where I will actually try to “more so” take moments throughout the week to spend an hour or so writing, posting, researching, sharing.
So, again I say, “here goes!”
Just paid for a domain too (eee 😉) Well, we have the money now, so saying bye bye to all of the free sites that I have used since becoming a Mommy.
Pause – still have no real clue how to do this, “this” meaning – starting an actual blog? It’s okay though, I got this … There’s Youtube, Pinterest, Google (although I question google because seriously what is going on there … anyone else realize that you cannot google the way you once did?) Now, finding time to research all it entails to become a blogger, that’s another story? 🤷🏻♀️
So, blogging, writing … I mean, it’s an actual “thing” … seriously … If you follow influencers, you tubers, etc. Many do have blogs. So adding “my new blog” to my to-do list. 🤷🏻♀️
You see a few years back, my bestie once told me, during one of our morning conversations, “You hold yourself back.” My husband then confirmed this when I asked, “Do you think I hold myself back?” … They both ended up saying the same thing, “You aren’t a risk taker, some take risks and aren’t afraid of failure!” Well, this got me thinking … 🤔
Coming from them … it just made me think. 🤔 You see, they both are indeed successful and they both will take risks. They aren’t afraid to take a risk (or to make a decision, is a better word) in their professional worlds. I guess they’ve learned that you will never know, unless you try or say yes or no. They often say, “If it doesn’t work … then okay, let’s try something else.”
To be honest, maybe this is why he is an Excutive Director at an Ivy League University and she owns her own business in the field of plasma/science.
Throughout the years, I have enjoyed meeting so many in my circle … but these two, just so very blessed by them. One, to be married to my love and my best friend, and two, to have a gal by my side since HS. I just think and talk very highly of these two, not just because they are my husband and my best friend. I am just so proud of them both, setting goals, sticking with their goals, and their work ethic, their achievements, and their success.
So, I am going to stick with blogging, or at least try to stick with it …
See I am a gal who’s always setting goals. I achieve some and let others go because that’s just “me.” 🤷🏻♀️
My first priority though, is always my family. We decided, while expecting our first little love that I would be a SAHM, so I gave up the career world. It’s crazy looking back because it had it’s challenges for sure, especially in the beginning, but I definitely do not regret it, not even for a second.
Throughout the years, I have taken on other roles while being a stay-at-home mommy. In volunteering at our church, our girls’ school, and their activities. I was a Cheer Coach, an Etsy Shop Owner, now an Etsy Shop Manager, a Coaches Wife, now a Scentsy Consultant, etc. Here’s my website for Scentsy ➡️ http://jenniferbendas.scentsy.us
So haven’t exactly been bored by any stretch of the means, but now an actual blogger with an actual domain 💗…
Cozy Styling 