Pleased to introduce you to my friend Kelly! I do believe Kelly rocks the award for friend with most distance from me (can you get any farther than North Carolina and Alberta?) Kelly and I met working together at my first design job right out of college. Her creative and organized heart is something to envy. She has true talent and an eye for detail. Kelly was awesome enough to share her tips on being so organized. Check out tomorrow's post for her "Listmakers Guide to Listmaking".
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I am honored that Lauren wanted to feature me
in her Rockstar Mom section for sure!
I’ve had this task on my “to do” list…..ahhhh, the never-ending “to do”
list; a constant staple in my life. How
will I manage to find time to write something when I have a gazillion other
things going on? Well, nothing feels
better than crossing items off my
“to do” lists….so here it goes…..
I’ve
been racking my head about what I might possibly write about myself that would
be interesting and that people would find interesting to read.
I’m certainly no expert on life.
I don’t have any clever taglines.
No top ten rules to live by.
Nothing of the sorts.
But as I was taking my shower this morning
and looked up at the little sign that I have decorating my bathroom window
sill, it came to me.
Why not write about how my life is good… at the
beach!
Well,
let me backtrack a little bit and introduce myself. My name is Kelly. I’m a full-time working interior designer,
wife, and mother of two kids. Drue, my daughter, is 6 and
Gavin, my son, is 3. My husband, Andrew,
is a sergeant for Folly Beach Public Safety Department.
I’m a true
creative at heart.
I love organizing
(weird, I know).
I love Pinterest.
I love party planning.
I love making invitations.
I love making hair clips for my daughter and
her friends.
I love anything
crafty.
Life
wasn’t the easiest a year ago. My life
was in total transition. My kids and I
were still living in Indianapolis, IN and my husband had taken on a new job
here in Charleston. Nothing is easy
about living apart; especially when you have kids and ESPECIALLY when it’s for
six months. We were in the process of
trying to sell our house, which took much longer than we could have
expected. Everything was on me…getting
my daughter ready for preschool in the morning, taking my son over to my
sister’s house so she could watch him, making sure the house was immaculate in
case we had any unexpected showings, working full time, giving baths, putting
kids to bed, making meals. I honestly
don’t know how single mothers do it.
Then when we finally sold our house, it was up to me to do all the items
above, coordinate the moving company, AND pack the house all by myself in the
meantime. Yuck, just thinking about all
that stress right now makes me nauseous.
I’m so glad that time period is over.
I look back on this picture of our family with the ipad, and say, thank
goodness for technology, because that’s really the only way our family held it
together!!!
It
was hard leaving my extended family to come take on this new adventure in
Charleston, but sometimes you have to do things you never thought you would do,
and that means going places you never knew you would go! We took a leap of faith to move here, and
with that came lots and lots of prayers.
But God has been with us along the way, making sure we are okay. And now, it’s a year later and we are loving
life!
I
was lucky enough to have the opportunity to stay at home with my kids when we
first moved. I mean, how could I not
take advantage of being able to walk out my front door, and head to the beach
every day! It
was hard going back to work after being off for 8 months or so, I’m not going
to lie. But it needed to happen; we needed
the extra money.
I’ve been a designer for about ten years now, and like I mentioned,
creativity is such a part of my life.
I’m not “me” without it. Now my
life is back in the state of transporting kids to school, their extracurricular
activities, working full time, giving baths, putting kids to bed, and making
meals; but at least this time I don’t have to do it all myself. I realize that being all together as a family
is truly SUCH a blessing. It’s been
hard, but it’s making my husband and I better, stronger people. We have been having so much fun here
exploring and taking on new life adventures…..together.
As
long as I’ve got my notebook and my lists, my life stays a little bit more put
together. Whether it’s a list of work
tasks, a grocery list, a packing list, a list of things to do over the weekend,
a list of things that need to be done around the house (who knows; sometimes it
may even be a list of the lists I need to put together)…..if it’s in a list I
can keep it together. THAT and a bunch
of prayers. It’s not much, but in my
life, things need to be that simple, otherwise it’s too complicated! And so for now, my simply, complicated life
is good…..at the beach!
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If you are interested in custom barrettes, invitations, or party planning please email Kelly at kellygilreath@gmail.com
Labels: barrette, guide to list making, invitation, kelly gilreath, life at the beach, life is good, listmaker, organization, party planning, rockstar mom
