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Skip to content Mommin' It Up! Mommin' It Up since 2004! Scroll down to content Posts Posted on April 11, 2019 April 11, 2019 Super Blog Friends, It’s Time to Activate! Ahh, so all week I’ve been trying to get over here to blog. I am really jonesing to tell you all about my all-expenses paid for trip to Vegas courtesy of Monat . I mean…ME?? In Vegas?? You know that had some hilarious highlights. I don’t drink or gamble, LOLOL! HOWEVER, last night something more important and much more blog worthy came up, so y’all are gonna have to wait a hot minute for “What happens in Vegas…Jenny Edition.” I promise it will be worth it. So what could be even MORE important than me bumbling my way through Sin City? Why, a BLOG FRIEND in need, of course. I first met Natasha Baker through the hilarious Holly Michael (longtime reader of this here train wreck) a few years ago when we all entered (AND LOST, COME ON!!!!) the Erma Bombeck writing contest. Then, I met her in PERSON at the actual Erma conference in 2016. I’ve enjoyed following Natasha’s writing on Dayton Moms Blog and Dayton Magazine, and on Facebook, the adventures of her farming family as they sold one farm, moved to another, and lived in a trailer for a ew months while building their new home. Twin tween boys and a teenage girl + two parents in a small space made for some very funny FB posts! Natasha and her hard working farmer husband David live in Waynesville, have been married 26 years and have a 16-year-old accomplished ballerina daughter and twin 12-year-old football playing sons. They work super hard to provide for their family. Recently, I had the wind knocked out of me when Natasha poste d an article she had written for the Dayton Moms Blo g announcing that, after months of odd incidents and medical tests for David, he had been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s Disease. He is 48. David and Natasha Baker If this news knocked the wind out of me, imagine how it felt for Natasha, David, and their kids. Life as they knew it is a thing of the past. The new normal is what just weeks ago would have been unimaginable. David can no longer work, and Natasha has had to scale back her own work, resigning as editor of Dayton Magazine to start this new chapter as caregiver. They need to sell their house and their farm and move to a more practical space ASAP. They need to try and give their kids as “normal” a life as possible and soak up family time together. Many of Natasha’s friends have asked “WHAT CAN WE DO???” all the while knowing, the practical answer is… “not much.” ANd that kinda sucks. HOWEVER there is ONE thing we can do, and that is support the Bakers financially. David can’t work, Natasha’s had to quit some of her gigs, and they need some help getting over the hump while they sell their home & land. Honestly I was so relieved when I found out that a friend had set up a GoFundMe for the Bakers. Now we can HELP!!!! Years and years ago, you all stepped up to provide for my friend E when she was battling cancer. Now I am asking you to step up for the Bakers. They need some “$5 Friends” – friends who are willing to support them, complete strangers, simply because you trust me, the messenger, to tell you they’ve earned it. So I am asking you to hop over to their GoFundMe link and give $5 or more. I’ve given $20 because I would not ask you to do something I was not willing to do a few times over. Their goal is $5000 and I want the Mommin’ It Up crowd to help us SMASH it!! I really hope they go way over because in my opinion it’s not high enough. Let’s crush it!! While you’re there, read what Natasha has written about David and their situation. I want you to hear the facts of their situation from her, and learn about the man she loves so much. Feel free to email me with any questions, but what you really need to know is: these are good folks. They have been dealt a hand in life that has been largely full of joy, and they are thankful. But the current hand they are holding is full of some hardship. So let’s start stacking the deck the other way as this next hand unfolds. Thank you, friends, from the bottom of my heart!! Share Posted on March 27, 2019 March 27, 2019 The Death of Retail Is Entirely My Fault {Oops!} This morning I saw an article on our local site Dayton.com with the headline “Update: First three months of 2019 post nearly as many store closings as all of 2018”. Uggghhhh. Love reading good news first thing in the morning! Since, as we discussed in my last post, I am REALLY OLD, I no longer enjoy hitting the mall like I used to. However, I was really sad when Sears closed last year because I enjoyed going twice a year and buying ALL THE CLEARANCE LANDS’ END. All of it. I am legit super super super sad about that lost opportunity! But as I read the article and thought about my shopping habits of late, I realized something: the death of retail as we know it may rest squarely on my online-shopping shoulders. OOPSIE!!! You see, I haven’t shopped in-store for Christmas in YEARS. At some point the pressures of having kid birthdays on November 16th and December 17th and hubby’s birthday on November26th in addition to Christmas just got the nest of me, and I let Amazon and Target.com take over. NO REGRETS! I did recently shop for Joshua’s birthday in-store (Gamestop, yo) on THE DAY BEFORE his birthday, because it took me forever to get him to tell me what he wanted. LOL! And it was in the middle of the day and I was the only one in the store…this is how I like to shop. Ha! But anyhoo, recently I upped my online shopping game thanks to FREE RETURNS on Amazon. OMG BFFs!! It’s amazing! You see you guys, I am about to do something CRAZY! I am going to VEGAS! I’ve never been, and I am going for FRREEEEE thanks to MONAT! Yep, my shampoo slinging earned me a free trip, and I leave Monday. I AM SO NOT READY, logistically (I’m getting there!) But I am SO EXCITED! {again, if you want to learn more about Monat, do your shampoo shopping online, or have h me send you a free sample, you can request your freebie at this link: http://bit.ly/fixyourhai r}. When I found out that I had earned my Vegas trip with a few of my shampoo BFFs, one of my first thoughts was “CRAP I NEED A NEW SWIMSUIT”! So, I ordered one from my old standby, Lands’ End. BUT…when it arrived, I hated it. It was NOT flattering, and I didn’t have a lot of time to order another. So I went the Amazon route, and discovered suits by CupShe – and FREE RETURNS! HELLO!!! I ended up with two suits that I LOVE, and combined they were cheaper than the one I got from Lands’ End! Here are the two I got, this yellow one is my fave: https://amzn.to/2Udbtj N But I also really like this one: https://amzn.to/2Fxi6Ei Both of these suits keep me covered and comfy and hold in my c-section gut. WINNNN! I also bought one other one that ended up being WAAAAY more low cut than I realized, so I sent it back to Amazon. I dropped my package off at the UPS store at about 11 am, and my credit was issued to me by 1 pm. I AM NOT EVEN KIDDING! WHAT DARK MAGIC IS THIS??? Soooo next, I needed a cocktail dress to wear to our Monat fancy Vegas reception. For this, I turned to Emily, because I haven’t needed a cocktail dress in YEARS and I was pretty sure she had one or seven I could borrow. I narrowed the choices down to these two and had my Facebook group vote. My group chose the navy one, but I don’t have SHOOOOOES to go with it. Because I have flat feet and a bad back, I really have VERY specific dress shoe needs. I can’t do a high heel (See again: OLD OLD OLD.) Sooo I did INDEED have to leave my house and hit the retail stores for this. SIGH. After two days of wasted efforts, I came home empty-handed. A friend had also suggested to me that Amazon had free returns on SHOES too, sooo…this morning in a last-ditch effort, I ordered these: https://amzn.to/2Wt8sJ L They will be here on Friday, and I’ll keep you posted on how they worked out. But I am so glad that if they don’t, I...