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Thoughts for a Thursday

Lifestyle

25 May

I have loved reading so many other bloggers posts about personal things about them so I’m jumping on the bandwagon. Some are serious, some silly but they are all true.  Only my closest friends and family {probably} know all of these. Let’s get personal. 

(1)
 I HATE goat cheese.  It tastes like goats smell to me.  I grew up going to my grandfather’s farm and petting the goats and goat cheese smells and tastes like that farm.  I can’t stand it. It actually grosses me out.  Consequently most of my friends love it, so they always make fun of me for it.

(2)
 I HATE using public restrooms.  I hold my nose whenever I go in one because I am terrified of the smell and worried that I might gag.   I make all of my kids go multiple times before leaving the house. On a plane I will usually go the whole flight without using the bathroom.  I have gone as far as California and Las Vegas (4-5 hour flights) and not used the bathroom once.  

(3)
 I LOVE all things scary.  Roller coasters, horror movies, haunted houses… you name it.  Bring it on!  My ideal fall night is hanging out on our screened porch at night, watching a scary movie and having some red wine in front of the fire.  Along the same line, I like turbulence on an airplane.  I feel like I’m riding a fun ride at Disney.  Weird, I know.  My 2 younger kids are the exact same way.  Allen looks at me as though I have completely lost my mind.

(4)
 I have had fertility issues.  Allen and I could look at each other and get pregnant but keeping a pregnancy past 10 or 11 weeks was a serious problem.  I have three living children but I also lost 3 babies. All three we had heard good, strong heartbeats. Because of this I have had more surgeries than I can count. I actually knew most of the staff and CMC One Day Surgery and they recognized me because I was there so much between 2010 and 2013.  D&Cs, hysteroscopies, and finally a hysterectomy because the inside of my uterus was black {instead of being pink and fluffy, as my doctor described it} from all of the scar tissue and damage.  I wanted more than anything to have a fourth child especially after my dad died but it just wasn’t in the cards.

Our complete family

(5)
 I am a Southerner but I hate thank-you notes.  I hate writing them and I feel guilty when people send them to me. My mom is probably turning over in her grave as I write this. If I take people meals when they have had a baby I try to always tell them not to write me one.  It defeats the purpose of trying to help make their life easier if they have to turn around and write me a note.  

(6)

 I am not a helicopter parent BUT I have a child with special needs.  You can’t tell by looking at him or her but it’s there.  It consumes my life daily.  If I am off Instagram or not blogging for a while chances are it because something is going on with them.  It’s hard to talk about because not many people understand.  People {even close friends} don’t understand why we don’t take family trips with friends, why we can’t hire just any babysitter, why my kids go to fairly early and why we don’t have a lot of playdates.  I just never know how it’s going to go.  The anxiety and anticipation are almost debilitating.  I can’t stand the thought of us as parents or even worse, my child,  being judged if things don’t go right.  There are days and weeks that I would like to just hole up in our house and do nothing… and sometime we do. All five of us see a counselor weekly to help us all cope on a daily basis. 


(7)
 Before I was a mom, I was a litigation paralegal.  I majored in Public History in college because I wanted to work in a museum or with historical sites.  No one told me that would be incredibly hard to get a job doing those and that most of those positions were volunteer positions!  So I worked in a bank {and hated every minute of it} and got my graduate degree in Paralegal Studies.  I received both undergrad and graduate degrees at Meredith College, an all girls school in Raleigh.  Everyone was shocked that I went to an all girls school but it was great for me to not have the distraction of boys in college. 

(8)
  On that note, I almost flunked out my freshmen year.  I was going out to much and having too much fun!  My parents were REALLY strict in high school so when I got to college I went a little crazy.  At a small private school, every teacher had an attendance policy so you were expected in class.  My first semester I went home A LOT because I was very homesick, so I would skip classes.  Then my second semester I was seeing a guy that went to Chapel Hill- just a short 30-45 minute drive from Raleigh.  However me and a couple friends would go to visit every night and then either come back super late or the next day and that really took a toll on school work and grades. And I had signed up to take a computer class on Saturday mornings {seriously} and then thought I had dropped it.  Well, apparently not because I ended up getting a zero for the class.  Oops.  Needless to say my parents were not very happy with me.  I turned it around sophomore year, thank goodness.   


(9)
 I HATE public speaking.  Literally, panic attack, anxiety, red-faced, hives- the works.  I avoid it at all costs still to this day.  Just typing this now is making me sweat. 
 (10)
I have 2 MAJOR pet peeves. People that lie and people that talk about money like it’s no big deal.  I’m sure everyone would probably agree but I remember stuff.  If you told me something I will remember.  I’m awful about looking back at emails and texts and catching people not being 100% honest all the time.  It’s for that reason that sometimes I say too much.  I don’t want anyone to ever think that I am being inauthentic so I can be brutally honest, but I do try to do it in a nice way.  That’s the Southerner in me.   It also drives me crazy when people make assumptions about how much money others have.  Unless you are their banker- chances are you have NO idea. The phrase  “He/ She does is a ________, they can afford it.” or “You know you have the money, go ahead and spend your money on ________.”  You have no idea what kind of student loans, hospital bills, debt etc… people have so just shut up about it.  People can spend their money on what they want to and not on what they don’t and you should not dictate or make them feel guilty either way.


(11)

I am SUPER Type A.  Especially when it comes to making my bed.  EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.  It has to be perfect, straight, hospital corners and all.  If the kids rooms are messy and I don’t have time to clean them, I will shut the door so I don’t have to look at it. I also straighten their beds almost everyday if they aren’t perfect.  I have tried to stop and forget about it but I just can’t.

Bed is made, but I was secretly freaking out that we were messing it up.

(12) 
I can be very vain. When I was on bedrest with Hollins I had my hair stylist come every six weeks and I would lay on the kids squishy Pottery Kids frog chair with towels on it so that she could highlight my hair. I wasn’t suppose to even sit up, but there was no way I was going to see those roots.

On bedrest… but no roots (yassss!)

(13)

I had 2, almost 3 of my kids without an epidural.  It was NOT by choice.  Each time labor happened so quick that I didn’t or almost didn’t get to have one.  With my first I was fully dilated before I got one because they were waiting on test results.  With my second I got to the hospital at 8:20 and he was born at 8:40.  Yep 20 mins from car-wheelchair-elevator-room-bed. With my third I thought I was doing great and got my epidural at 6 cm.  Then everything tapered off.  The doctor then decided to break my water and in 3-5 minutes I was fully dilated and the epidural had worn off and they couldn’t find the anesthesiologist.  

My fabulous doctor still in regular clothes because there was no time for scrubs. 
Jackson~August 25, 2006

Nat~ January 11, 2008

Hollins~ March 21, 2012

(14)
I can’t live without Blistex.  I have tubes of it all over the house, in my car and in every bag.  If I don’t have a pocket or purse on me, Allen knows he has to hold the Blistex. I usually buy 9 or 10 tubes at a time.


(15)

Spring is my least favorite season.  I hate the back and forth weather in NC.  I hate the yellow pollen and allergies. And then when you have a hot day and I have to wear shorts or a dress and my legs are so pale from winter, it drives me crazy.


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