"I dont need an inspirational quote, I need coffee"

 I have a magnet on my fridge that says "I dont need an inspirational quote. I need coffee"

And as I sit here and try to convince myself that I havent failed yet. I decided I needed a cup of coffee. Its 5:00 and this I guess would be the time that someone would start drinking something a little stronger than coffee. However. If I start drinking the harder stuff...I might not stop.

So while I feed my daughter some chicken nuggets and I drink my early evening coffee I figured I would come on here and dump my thoughts out. 

Because thats what a blog is for right? to get rid of the thoughts that blog your mind...oh wait thats clog. hmm... 

I have been going round and round in my mind with all the nonsense of the Youtube world.

Its hard. I am only a month in and its hard. 

I know that is a silly thing for me to say to...well literally one person but it is. I can never get traction on these things. I have tried. But I also give up pretty quick. 

I am making a promise to myself that as long as I am having fun sharing my videos with my friends I will continue to do it. 

Because if you go in the mindset of getting rich, its not going to happen. 

I dont want to get rich... I mean... of course I want to get rich but that isnt my goal. 

My goal...is to have a community. Someone that maybe looks up to me like I do with so many youtubers. 

Here is a fun fact that no one really knows. 

Charles Trippy, and even his sister Mel Trippy got me through my break up. (I am talking years ago before I met my husband...My husband and I are fine lol)

It started with Charles and his divorce. When he moved on and found his better person. It was eye opening to me. These are real people with real problems. Not just a script written for some actors. 

Then Mel went through her break up and she really opened my eyes. That even if you think your love is enough to change someone...its not. 

I am not saying because of these people I ended a relationship. I am saying that they helped me deal with the feelings I already had. 

So I would like to share some insight to someone. Maybe someone will watch my video and realize that dreams can come true. 

I am still working on that whole thing but I really hope this dream comes true. 

I saw on a movie (Cant remember what movie) But the little girl wishes on a star. But her dad said the star will only take you so far, you have to do the rest. 

or something like that. 

So I wish that I will be a successful YouTuber... but I am also going to put in the work. 

Someday a person who is just starting their journey will be talking about me in their blog and how I inspired them...

Well it sounds nice anyways lol

Doing these videos is pushing me to do something with my life. 

I also think a video I did kind of put me in a dumpy mood. 

I mean I am always in a dumpy mood but this time it really struck me hard. 

I tried doing an unboxing video on my new bed. 

It wasn't flattering and I didnt post it. I hate that I feel that way and no one in the comment section can be meaner than I am to myself but I am just not that brave yet. 

Of course the weather is crummy and my brain is like "we will start walking" and mother nature is like..."ya gonna do it in the rain?" 

I dont usually drink coffee this late anymore. It doesnt usually bother me but lately if I have two cups I get jittery. 

But since it has been several hours and I thought I was going to fall asleep I decided I needed some coffee...and maybe a little inspiration. 

SO blog world. If anyone is out there. Give me some sort of hope that this is going to work out. 

I hope you have a random day and go check out my videos lol

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_XHcUXtR7Hb10T6_A-x1rQ

I also created a website..ha! go check that out if you want

Randomreeds.com

Honest Review of Hello Fresh

 Hello Blog world 

I am trying to get some of my videos promoted so I am posting in multiple platforms. Pinterest being one of them. So If you see these after the videos... That's what I am doing. 

So this is the written version of my hello fresh review. 

The world has a box subscription for just about everything now. If you can think it...chances are there's a box for that. 

The idea of having food sent to me is amazing. I hate going to the store. I get overwhelmed easily and end up forgetting things or getting the wrong items. 

I want to cook more, I want to try new foods. So the best way to do this...

Meal subscription boxes. 

*Enter Hello Fresh* 

I have had other box meal things before but I don't think I have tried hello fresh but that's the one I hear about the most. 

I found a promo code and tried it. 

Here are some Pros and Cons of Hello Fresh and what I thought of it. 

To view this video go on over to Random Reeds on YouTube (Or just click the link below) Or read on!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVc-ZtpBV7Q

Pros:

* Dont need to shop for random things. 

    I love trying new foods but I have so many recipes that I never try mostly because I cant find the ingredient or I have no idea what it is. And if I do find it, you have to buy a bunch of it and chances are you might not use it again soon or it might not be something you enjoyed so now you have a whole jar of this random ingredient that takes up space in your pantry until you clean it out and its four months expired. 

With Hello Fresh you are given the ingredients you need in the exact measurements (for the most part). You are not wasting a whole jar of a certain sauce but you also get to try it. That sounds like a win to me. 

* You don't forget random things

    By the time I get through the store and I realized I forgot something...I rarely go back. 

So then basically I wasted time and I don't have all the ingredients to make the recipe. With Hello Fresh, they give you everything you need (except things like oil and salt but they warn you that you will need those before your shipment comes) 

* Easy instructions:

    I get overwhelmed when the instructions are all just clumped together in one long paragraph. I end up mixing steps up or skipping steps. With Hello Fresh the recipe cards are easy to read and are step by step. 

*Skip weeks. 

    Because it is expensive you can skip weeks when you need a break. So instead of canceling all together you just skip a few weeks until you want the box. 

*Extras

    Now not only can you get three yummy meals to try you can get extra meats, or even some extra meals. 

*Confidence 

    Hello fresh has given me the confidence to cook more. I am not the best cook but I am getting better because of Hello Fresh. I am learning new things in the kitchen and cooking has been....dare I say it...fun!

I found myself grocery shopping the other day and I was going to get instant mashed potatoes and I laughed and thought to myself "Hey I actually know how to do real mashed potatoes now and they are pretty darn good!" (the secret is sour cream instead of milk) 

It was a great feeling. 

However....I do have some complaints. 

Cons

*Price

Its expensive. When they break it down to "9.00 dollars a plate" it sounds reasonable but, the portions are small so you dont have any left over usually. In my opinion its not cost effective. So if you do try Hello Fresh I recommend you finding a promo code....like this one. Yes I do get perks if you use this code :)

https://www.hellofresh.com/pages/share?c=HS-QAF00BTII&utm_campaign=clipboard&utm_couponvalue=70&utm_invitername=Casey&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=raf-share

*Small portions

    Most of the meals left you hungry after. However...I guess a positive to that is more room for dessert! 

*Measurements 

    sometimes the measurements were vague and I didn't care for that too much "A drizzle of oil, Pinch of salt, well salted..." 

I prefer better measurements. 

I am keeping the subscription but skipping a few weeks because like I said overall I did enjoy making these meals and I love trying new things!

I hope you enjoy my review. Please do me a favor and check out my YouTube! Go subscribe because I am going to do more subscription boxes and you don't want to miss anything! 

Have a Random Day!

Advice I wish I taken: Mom Tips part One

 Good morning Blog world. 

First I want to say that any of the links that I share do earn from qualifying purchases (which means that if you click on an affiliate link and make a purchase, I may receive a small commission)

Now on to the post

I did a video on Mom tips which I will post below but I also wanted to come on here and ramble about the same thing in case you missed the video!

Or maybe you like reading instead. EITHER WAY. the information is here if you would like to consume it. 

I want to say, I am not a mom expert by any means. As soon as I figure something out my darling daughter throws a curve ball at me. Its been an interesting adventure. 

But I think some of the things I have learned are worth sharing.

So this is going to be broken up into sections. Again if you would just rather watch the video click on the link below and make sure you subscribe for more Random Tips! 

https://youtu.be/rb_aqsSFtqQ

*Advice I wish I would have listened to*

Once you are pregnant everyone in the world will have advice to give you. Most of it is very unwanted and rarely asked for. But occasionally, rarely someone will actually give you good advice. Of course some of those things I didn't listen to until after but I am going to share some of the advice I wish I listened to. 

 1.) Don't worry about the nursery. 

This is one I really wish I listened to because I honestly lost sleep over the dumb room and to be honest, I didn't end up using it as much as I thought I would have. You see all these famous people doing nursery room makeovers and you just get inspired and you want it to be as awesome as theirs but... of course you don't have the budget to really achieve what they are doing. And sometimes they actually just have professionals helping them so its unrealistic to expect you are going to achieve the same thing. 

Also as much as I love pinterest it led me down a rabbit hole that just ended up making me depressed. 

My advice, in addition to the advice I didn't take is, just make the nursery usable. We had it set up one way but once the baby actually got here we found that it wasn't user friendly so we ended up changing most of it anyways. We also had our nursery set up more for the family members who were babysitting. It wasn't exactly baby safe but since our move we have changed it up a lot. 

2.) Your baby will reach the Milestones. 

This is a hard one to take in. Especially for someone like me who doesn't take criticism well. And this is one of the reason I stopped doing the app or reading the books on what your baby should be doing at a certain age. 

Alice was about 4 months old I think and we took her to the doctors, which is incredibly stressful for new mothers anyways. The doctor she had (which she no longer sees) had me in tears. She asked if she was doing all these things which she was doing most of them or trying to do most of them. One of which was "Is your baby rolling over" Well she hadn't actually rolled over yet by herself so I answered her honestly telling her "no not yet" Which she started clicking her tongue and telling me she is behind and we need to work on that. 

Do you know what that statement did to me? As a new mom who is already a basket case 99% of the time, now you are telling me my baby is behind? I started crying which the doctor just ignored and started comparing my baby to her new baby. It was terrible. I told my niece who was helping me baby sit her at the time that we needed to work on her rolling over. We had a plan and we were going to do all the things. Literally the next day without any help or even trying to get her to do it, Alice rolled over by herself. 

Moral of the story, she will figure it out. I am not saying don't work with your baby and try to reach the milestones, but if your baby is "a little behind" don't stress about it. Because everyone learns at their own pace. 

3.) Don't Compare your baby to others!

Why? Because again your baby might learn things at a different pace. Doesn't mean its wrong its just fact. People learn at different paces. Babies are people... get what I am saying? 

Its going to drive you insane if you try to keep up with your friends baby that might be around the same age. So just don't do it. 

I was going to go into the rest of the things I talked about in my video but I will leave it here and do this in multiple blog posts. 

So again if you havent checked out Random Reeds on YouTube, GO DO IT! 

Did you get any advice while you were pregnant that you should have listened to? If so let me know in the comments below! 

Have a Random Day everyone! 

All The Things

 Good morning Blog World. 

I am so excited right now...about what you might ask? Everything. 

Things are coming together in such a positive way for me. I am actually so grateful to be home right now with Alice. I am learning new things about her every day. I am also loving all this time to be creative and productive. 

I have a lot of things going on that I am trying to accomplish. 

Most of these things are attempts to grow my channel and grow my income lol. 

I think I might start selling on Amazon. Mostly Books or video games. 

I have become an amazon associate which basically means I can get links to share with you and then I can make a very tiny commission if someone were to buy anything from amazon. 

so far... I have made 20 cents...dont worry everyone I will remember you when I am rich and famous. HAHA

We have been working hard to get the house looking nice and organized... its been challenging but we are doing it. Little at a time. Its going to be so fricken epic when we are done. 

Something that made me chuckle... My husband hasnt had most of his stuff out on display for a long time. My house was just too small for all the things we collectively have so most of it was in storage. So A lot of this stuff I am seeing for the first time. Well he tells me to find homes for the things. So I careful unpack the things and try to decide where it would fit. 

Most of the things in this particular box were dragons. I love dragons...I usually lean more towards the cute quirky looking ones and he leans more towards the badass scary looking ones. But either way. I am happy with finding a home for dragons. Naturally everything in the house has to be somewhat baby proof but I decided our bedroom was going to be more where we can display things that we dont have to worry about Alice getting into. 

On my shelf I have some handsome gargoyles that I have had for many years. Well I was putting the dragons next to them and of course they look a little random because the dragons are smaller. So it looks funny. but my thought process went to "Omg the dragons dont go with the gargoyles how can I ever find a home for them!" But honestly it doesnt look bad... It could be worse...I could be trying to put baseball figures or some other sport thing next to my gargoyles...That would look...well I am thankful for dragons.

There was only one thing I couldnt find a home for yet...that was the Halo thing... the video game...I dont know. Apparently its important we have this thing so I will find a home. But right now...its just in the catch all room which will some day (hopefully soon) will be the Nerd Cave. 

A place for Chris to display all of his nerdy memorabilia without it getting knocked over by cats or grabbed by Alice. 

He is being nice and sharing some of the space so I can have a badass computer set up so I can start really becoming a youtuber! Ha.

Lots of cool things are happening and its just so great to be able to have the time with not only Alice but with him to be able to set up our new home. 

Stay tuned! AND be sure to check out my channel!

 

Cant sleep

 Good evening internet world. 

I cant sleep. I have way to much going on in my mind. Mostly...my new adventure. 

I seem to have a lot of adventures huh. 

Well you see I decided that the blog thing wasnt working out the way I wanted...dont worry I will still come on here and ramble my thoughts to no one to read. But i decided it was time to try a new creative venture. 

YouTube. 

I have always wanted to start a YouTube Channel. I even got a camera and a tripod. 

It never went anywhere. Mostly because I put one video up of some random pictures of Bruce. 

But this time. I really want to be motivated to do it, I really want to get somewhere. 

I dont expect to strike it rich. Although that would be awesome. 

But it would be nice to be able to not worry about getting a job so I can stay home with Alice. 

See I was fired a few weeks ago from a job. It wasnt meant to be my forever job but the fact that I didnt leave on my own choice really bothers me. A lot. To the point I am having nightmares about it. 

I dont have the best self esteem. I often beat myself up over little things that I feel like most people just shrug off. 

The fact that I was told that I make too many mistakes...It really stuck with me. 

The job wasnt difficult. But the training was...well...I was told I had to train myself. I am pretty good at learning things pretty quickly on my own. But I do need some guidance sometimes...and at least a starting point. 

I am also not the best at spelling or numbers...which is ironic since I was a banker for 8 1/2 years and I also call myself a writer. 

But I dont think the mistakes I made were really worth being fired over. And yes they could have been avoidable...if someone would have helped me. 

It really hurt to hear that I wasnt good enough...for this simple job. I keep replaying the whole situation in my mind. But what really really hurt the most. When my boss was telling me my strengths...of what I would be good at in the future...Answering the phones and talking to people...just as long as I didnt have to figure something out. 

I dont know if I can type how I felt in that moment. To know that for the few months I had been there, that was my strength. And the really ironic thing about that is I hate talking on the phone. You have no idea that amount of self talk I have to give myself to just make my normal "adult" calls. Sometimes it takes days. 

So I really dont know what to do with this information. 

But I decided to give myself an impossible goal... One that I really hope I can accomplish. 

Doing more research I am constantly altering my goal but for now... 

I would like to be able to make some sort of income on Youtube by this time next year. 

I asked my husband if he thought I could do it. He kindly said...its not going to be easy. 

And I am aware that it wont be easy. But I can do this. 

I think I can be a great story teller. I just need to get out of my own way. I need to move past what people say to me and just do what I think is right. 

I will probably have to find a real job soon... But for now... 

I need to enjoy this time I can spend with my daughter and enjoy the time that I can build an audience for the channel. 

Its just hard for me to do that. 

So Internet. I need you to work your magic. I need you to help me get to 1000 subscribers and 4000 hours of public view time so I can start having ads on my channel. 

Please gods and goddess of the internet world hear my plea. I dont want fame and fortune. I just want to be able to be...me and be entertaining enough to get paid. 

I hope you all...which is no one reading this...understand what I am trying to do and make it a reality. I am going to need everyones help getting this goal achieved. 

Lets Get Random

Random Story #5

 Would you believe that I am typing these all on the same day? I am just scheduling them to come out later. 

BOOM magic ruined. 

I should be doing more productive things like getting paper work together for our house purchase but I cant do all of the things I need to do for that so I am just going to wait until I can. 

I am sort of using this as a distraction because lately I keep getting sad. 

But we are not here to talk about the sad things we are here to talk about the random story I am going to tell you. Which is...

hold on I am trying t think of one. 

Oh I have a scar that has an interesting story. 

I mean its kind of interesting because well I think it is so...I am going to tell you about it. 

I have a scar on my knuckles because I was in a fight. 

Ok I wasnt in a fight

I was trying to stop a fight...

Not a people fight...

A dog fight...vicous killer dog fight...ok it wasnt exactly a dog fight it was a puppy fight. 

My childhood dog Molly had puppies. They were Chow/Lab mix. So basically they were tiny grizzly bears. 

I want to say the fight happened just before they were 8 weeks old because we still had all of them and we werent planning on keeping any (My parents were famous for saying that by the way) 

I dont remember which puppy started the fight but I knew I had to save my favorite puppy who before this still wasnt named. My smart brain thought it was a good idea to try to stop this fight by grabbing the puppies by the mouth. One of them bit me and hurt my hand...fingers specifically pretty bad. So bad that I still have the battle scares. 

Its really not that big of a scar actually but you cant hardly see it unless you look at it in the right lighting. BUT I KNOW ITS THERE. 

The puppy I saved was the puppy we ended up keeping and because he fought so bravely we decided to name him Killer. 

He was the coolest dog in the world. I was the only kid he liked. Any of my nieces and nephews, when they came over he would just hide from them. But not like in I am scared of you kind of way more like a "you tick me off so i am going to avoid you so I dont kill you" kind of way. Which is something I can really relate to as an adult. 

He was so big and fluffy he was the best dog to hug. 

He got sick one time and didnt really do much but he still would walk around the yard with me just to hang out. I remember I kept a box of the neat things we found on our yard adventures. I buried it next to his grave when he died a year later. 

He was well known around the neighborhood. Killer had puppies all over the place. 

(By the way I do not support outside dogs and I do not support not getting your dogs spayed /neutered this was just how things were when I was a kid. )

 And my favorite story about this dog was, we were coming home and we still had Molly to (His mom) and our yard was fenced in so we had this big gate we had to open each time we left/came home. It was usually my job to go open the gate and close it after my parents got the car in. I took my job seriously. 

Well my mom and I were coming home and I started to get out of the car to get the gate like I always did but then my mom noticed that one of our neighbors dogs were out. They were not friendly dogs. My mom was getting ready to start honking the horn or something to get our neighbors attention so they could get the dogs inside. but Instead out come Killer and Molly to the rescue. Killer was the muscle naturally and he pinned the dog up against his fence holding him there while Molly stood guard. It seriously looked like something out of a cartoon. My mom told me to go get the gate quickly while the dogs were distracted (I swear I am not making this up this is an actual story lol) So i went and got the gate, my mom pulled in and I closed the gate. Just as I closed it Killer released the neighbor dog and Molly walked away like nothing happened. 

It was the greatest thing ever. 

Random Story #4

 This one is a collective randomness of when my niece and I were kids. 

My niece is a year younger than me so we grew up together. 

Back in the days where we had to play outside. No matter what the weather was like. If it was sunny (in Florida) We played in the yard. If it was raining we played in the screened in porch. If it was dinner time we ate outside of the screened in porch while our parents ate in there. 

I am starting to realize our parents just didnt want us around them. HA. 

Anyways... My niece and I had crazy imaginations. We always invented these weird games to play. Almost all of them invovled us getting into an argument because we would get stuck on who had more powers, or who was stronger...faster...smarter...prettier...blah blah blah you get the point. 

Well one night we were convinced the sky was brains. It was a cloudy day and the clouds just looked like a giant brain to us. It didn't help the spooky factor that it was also summer which "heat" lighting was apparently a thing. We had ourselves so freaked out that we begged...literally begged our parents if we could come inside because we were scared. 

The reluctantly let us in. 

Another time we scared ourselves stupid was, during one night we were outside playing, we wandered into the front yard...this is weird because we werent allowed to play by the cars so I am not sure how we managed that but we were there. Well by one of the cars was a pile of blankets (maybe?) and we were convinced it was a dead body. We kept daring each other to go look closer. Neither one of us would move. We stood frozen there in the driveway for hours (Ok maybe it was more like five minutes) Crying for someone to save us when eventually my brother moved the blankets and told us we were dumb. 

We also used to ride our bikes a lot. We would go around the block and go inside tell our moms we were ok and go ride around again...go inside tell our moms we were all right and go out again...you get the idea. well  as we were riding we saw a snake crossing the road. I lived out in a swampy area so this wasnt an unusual thing. Well we didnt want to get bitten obviously so we turned around to go back.... but we got a little ways down the road and there was another snake... except it was bigger... We stood in the middle of the road because we thought we were going to die. We finally got the courage to try to go back the other way because we figured the snake would be gone, and it was but man it was still scary. We went right back into my yard and stayed there. It was a while before we went back on our bikes again. 

The last scary story was when we were riding our bikes again and the house behind mine had three big dogs. They were always outside behind the fence so we never really had to worry about them. Until one day one of them decided he wanted to chase us. He jumped on his dog house jumped over his fence and started going after us. We peddled so hard that day. I was of course slower because I didnt get the banana seat bike which was obviously the faster bike so I basically almost died that day (Not really.) I screamed at the dogs to go away and apparently I speak dog because he listened. Or just got tired of chasing us. EIther way we tried to avoid going past that house after that....