This blog post is brought to you by 4am insomnia! 😅 Since Archie is now sleeping in longer stretches, my body isn’t used to getting that much sleep. So after 6 hours it thinks — “Wow, this is miraculous. We’re awake now!” 😂 Oh well. I’m happy to use this time to jot a few things that have been on my mind…

This year, the second it turned November I nagged John to dig the Christmas decorations out of storage. Usually, we don’t decorate until the second week of December (I know, late!) and last year, having just moved into our house, we were exhausted (and I was pregnant) and we didn’t decorate at all. This year just felt different. It had been a weird year with the pandemic, John having trouble finding work, the birth of our first son, human rights events, family drama, an emotional Election, a lockdown, yeah -- I could go on and on. It’s been a weird year for sure and I feel like decorating early for Christmas was an opportunity to throw a blanket of cheeriness over the remainder of the year.

It’s Archie’s first Thanksgiving and Christmas. I know I’m not alone in that it’s not really how I pictured it. I’m so immensely proud of this little human that John and I created together. I would have loved nothing more than to have our extended families meet him - *cue Game of Thrones accent* “Behold! Archer Forrestal. First of his name. A continuation of our lineage! The merging of our Houses. May he bring us honor!” lol.

His first Thanksgiving and Christmas will be spent similar to any other day in his life. He’ll get a bottle around 5:00, a bath at 6:00, and whoosh, asleep by 6:30. Dada will probably play drums in the barn and Mama will probably hop on her Peloton and get screamed at, erm, I mean, encouraged by a tan and toned 20-something. Then we’ll probably eat stuffing on the couch and watch reruns of the Great British Baking Show. Then maybe a slice of pie and whoosh, asleep by 10:00. I’m not complaining. I’m a creature that thrives on routine.

I took this week off of work and have been spending it doing things around the house, editing my podcast (coming on January 6, yes, my birthday!) and reflecting. As we enter this season of gratitude, I wanted to share some things that I’m thankful for:

a loving partner and best friend

No relationship is perfect and some of the things he does annoys the living bajesus out of me but I am so incredibly thankful for this human and the huge role he plays in my life. He’s always supportive of my (sometimes crazy) ideas. I want chickens? He’ll build me a coop. I want to rescue a cow? He’ll buy every “raising cattle” book for me. More recently, I became super passionate about quiche and wanted to start selling them at the local farmers market. Instead of reminding me how thin I’m spreading myself, he goes: “Well look into getting licensed to sell food in New Jersey!” I also appreciate that when I’m being overly critical about my creative work, he’ll help remind me that everyone starts somewhere. When I’m feeling self-conscious about spending money on my hobbies (photography, video games, cooking), he’ll remind me to embrace the joy of my creative outlets. Like every couple under the sun, we have our “issues”, but at our core we’re rock solid in that we’re the best partners and best friends. I love that we can play videogames together until 3am one day and watch a documentary and have discussions about it the next. I love that he loves me for who I am: I just love him. I love that we created a little human together. He’s the best partner to go on this adventure with.

a supportive family that archie gets to grow up to know and love

I feel so lucky that we have family on both sides of the house that are wonderful and supportive. Every family has their issues and you can’t expect people to get along 100% of the time, but if the core feeling is love then that’s all that matters. I’m so thankful that Archie is going to grow up knowing two great grandmothers and both of his grandparents. Not everyone has that luxury. I never got to meet my grandpa on my dad’s side and to this day I wonder what he was like and what kind of conversations we would have had. I feel like I embody his spirit for adventure and have a natural curiosity for the world that came from him.

My Vovo Pedro (grandmpa) was a Portuguese doctor during WWII and served in the British army in Burma. He met my grandma in Macau, China after the war. Together, they had 5 children, lived in Mozambique and Brazil and lived a life centered around family and adventure. I’m proud of our family history and will always wish that I got a chance to meet my grandpa. He passed away when my dad was 19. Although I never met him, I pray to him sometimes. I heard he was patient and wise so I ask him for guidance and patience over certain situations. I ask him to protect our little family and I like to think he’s watching over us. I never met him but somehow feel close to him. Here are some pictures of him, my grandma, and my dad with my aunts and uncles:

a Job/Career that allows me to work from home

I’ll never forget the time I drove 2.5 hours to stand at a booth in short black shorts for $500. Throwback to when having young women in small outfits was an “acceptable” marketing practice! Although I had a college degree (B.S. in Business Administration from Bentley University), it was 2011 and companies were still recovering from the 2008-2009 market crash.

It was cut throat trying to find a job that paid enough to pay my almost $100k in student loan debt and rent in downtown Boston. I’ll never forget a PR agency that tried to convince me that $28,000/year was a salary I should have been thankful to be offered. I distinctly remember telling them that I literally couldn’t afford to live in that salary and would have to take up a 2nd job to pay for my loans and for rent and food. Spoiler Alert: I ended up moving back in with my parents.

Anyway, after zig zagging at many different companies and “working my way up” I’m thankful to have reached a point in my career where I’ve nearly paid off all my student loans and can afford those expensive Montessori style toys for Archie 😅. I’m thankful that my job allows me to work remote so I can watch Archie grow up! I think 22 year old me, who did everything from being a “booth babe” to handing out sample packets at Whole Foods for extra cash would be proud!

Here’s a photos of my first big project of my career, CA Technologies annual conference, CA World in 2015. I was a Social Media Manager and managed social media for the event and got our event hashtag, #CAWORLD to trend on Twitter, which back in 2015, was a huge deal! 😂 I absolutely loved working for CA Technologies and was heartbroken when it was acquired by Broadcom in 2018. I’m still good friends with many of my colleagues from there and we still talk to this day! I also work with a lot of them currently in my role at Wolters Kluwer!

It was the first year John and I were dating and when I got home from working in Vegas all week he had made me a heart shaped cake and a congratulatory gift 😭❤ So sweet!

my healthy, amazing, baby archie

He’s not even 6 months and I can tell that we’re going to be best friends. He’s such a chill baby and is so much fun to hang out with. His little laugh makes me melt! I genuinely love spending time with him and I can’t wait until he’s old enough for us to have dance parties and cook and bake together. I’m excited for him to help me with the chicken coop and to go out and collect eggs every day. I’m excited for everything Archie! Do I sound obsessed? I try really hard not to come off as one of those “moms who are obsessed with their kids” BUT can I just let my CRAZY fly for a second? I LOVE MY SON. I LOVE BEING A MOM. I’m so incredibly thankful to have had a healthy pregnancy, a healthy birth, and to have this beautiful boy.

my new jersey mom blogger community who has helped me feel less lonely in my motherhood journey during the pandemic

I met a group of really amazing supportive women — all fellow bloggers here in New Jersey. We have a consistent group chat where we support each other through talking about our brand partnerships to our favorite shows and sharing our experiences. A lot of the women are moms and it’s made my motherhood journey less lonely throughout these pandemic months! On November 8, I had a small socially-distanced influencer event outside on our farm where we partnered with different brands and created content for them.

Here are some photos I took of my new friends at the event! It was fun being able to be the photographer, but I think next time maybe we’ll hire a photographer because I feel like I missed out on really being able to talk to everyone! These women are truly gorgeous beings inside and out and it was an absolute joy to be able to spend a few socially-distanced hours with them!

A few honorable mentions: Kylie, Kim, and Melissa, who weren’t able to join in person this time around. My friend Katharine was there but I wasn’t able to get any photos of her, which I’m bummed about to this day! I’m hoping that we get to do this again in the spring because it was so great to see the people I’ve been chatting with for months in-person.

My friend Jaime wrote a really great recap here:

the friends that are more like family

I’m so lucky to have friends that are more like family than some of my own family. The girls who were bridesmaids are still some of my best friends today. Even though we live in different States and are super busy, we’ve managed to keep in touch. These girls help me feel grounded and are always there when I need them. During my really difficult postpartum experience, I remember Haylee asking to call me and I told her I didn’t want to talk because I would just cry. She called me anyway and just listened to me literally sob on the phone. It felt special to me that she had that space in her heart to give me when I needed it most.

I have a lot of great friends in which motherhood has brought us closer together. There’s something about motherhood that just brings women together: a mutual understanding, a common thread among vastly different lives. I love it.

Moving to New Jersey was scary at first but I felt comforted that I had so many friends through John. He still has a lot of close childhood friends and I’ve been lucky to become friends with their wives!

My friend Brianne has been such a light in my life and her and her husband David live by the beach here in Jersey. Brianne came to my Bachelorette and I went to hers in Vegas. Brianne was also a guest on my podcast! I’m excited to have such supportive women in my life!

Honestly I could go on forever on some of the most wonderful people in our life. We have close friends that we met in Thailand that I talk to almost everyday. It’s heartbreaking thinking about family that you’re no longer close to for one reason or another, but it’s wonderful that as an adult, friends become the family you choose.

our animals that bring me joy, love, and purpose everyday

It’s no secret that these days the dogs drive me NUTS but that’s not to say that I’m not thankful for them. If we didn’t make the impulse decision to rescue Uan, Kipling, and Siggi, I’m not sure that we would have considered moving to a farm. We had 4 dogs in a tiny Bangkok apartment and we kept saying: next place we move to has to have a lot of land so the dogs can run and play. I also knew I wanted the space to possibly have my own little dog rescue one day. So when we moved back to the States from Thailand, we started to look at properties that had enough land for us to grow with. Right now, having my own dog rescue isn’t in the cards, but maybe one day. Maybe one day when all of our kids are out of the house and in the words of my friend Kylie, “when Motherhood becomes a sob fest.” LOL!

Rescuing our dogs has brought about some important lessons: patience, grace, humility, unconditional love. Dog rescue has absolutely helped me grow spiritually as a human.

It’s also been amazing to get new pets like chickens and rescuing our cow, Harold. I held my first chicken back in 2015 when I visited my friend Snow in San Francisco. She had 3 chickens and I thought that was the coolest thing. The second I got to hold one, I was hooked! I wanted chickens ever since.

Holding my first chicken:

I made my dreams of getting chickens come true this past January when we got 4 chickens off of Facebook Marketplace from a local Backyard Chickens group. Since then, I got 3 more chickens off of Facebook Marketplace, and then we got 14 baby chicks in the mail… yeah… the chicken addiction is very real. Since then, we lost a few chickens to natural causes. The most devastating losses were Britney Spears and Macy Gray. Britney Spears got eaten by a fox and Macy Gray we lost to heat stroke. Since then, we’ve been lucky. We like to let our girls free range around the farm! I’m so thankful for them as they give me so much joy and happiness everyday when I go out to visit them. Whenever I’m having a bad day, their little clucks and coos make me feel better. I’m excited for Archie to grow up with chickens!

Finally, I’m thankful for Harold! We rescued Harold last December when a friend asked if we had room on our farm for a baby cow. We impulsively took him in, only having moved in just a month before. Harold was originally named Milk Dud (and was destined to be veal lol), but now he lives like royalty on our farm with his bougie horse friend, Snoopy.

thankful for this life

I’m thankful for the simple things: my husband, our families, our son, our friends, our animals, our jobs. It feels really “back to basics” but those are just the things that I’m hugely thankful for. I feel like both John and I have been through our series of ups and downs and it feels like things have leveled out and we’ve truly “settled down”. When I was in my early 20s, I remember thinking about the whole notion of “settling down” felt like my life would be over. Now, I feel like my life has truly just begun.

What are you thankful for?