About Me

Hi!  I'm Amanda.

Welcome to That Inspired Chick!  If you clicked the About Me link, I'm guessing you are wondering who I am so let me introduce myself.  :)

 I'm Amanda.  I am a 30-something wife to Craig and mama to Matthew (9) & Mason (7).  I was born and raised in Texarkana, TX and now live in Mckinney, TX.  I own an Etsy shop called (shockingly) That Inspired Chick!  I make wood signs, glittery and girly drinkware, burlap prints, and decals for the most part.  I grew up in a Christian home and my faith has always been a very important part of who I am and the choices I have made.  I'm definitely not perfect. No Christian is.  But I'm constantly trying to dig deeper into my faith and become the woman He wants me to be.

Things to know about me.  I'm super laid back when it comes to most things.  I'm very practical and like things to make sense.  I love efficiency and am pretty sure I only operate in "multitasking" mode.  Why do only one thing at a time when I can do 2?  Or 3?!

I love to watch HGTV and then get all depressed that my decor skills are not up to par with that of Joanna Gaines.  So then I look around a room and start to redecorate it in my mind.  Which leads to me moving heavy furniture from one side of the room to the other, realizing the curtains we have are awful and then scouring Wayfair or Pinterest for hours looking for the right ones.  Which then leads me to the perfect dining room table that we must have.  That should match the new barstools I want which would look awesome with that gorgeous backsplash I saw on Property Brothers...  It is a battle I can't win because money doesn't grow on trees.  Boo.

We ARE in the process of adding some much-needed character and interest into our builder basic home though.  We are about halway through with installing a (faux) shiplap wall and built-ins in our dining room.  So far so good!  The hubby and I decided to DIY this job to save us around $3000...  I'm wondering if we can just pony up half of that and have someone come finish it for us.  Ugh.

When I'm not crying over the farmhouse I'll never have, you can usually find me in my craft room upstairs, working away and listening to a chick-lit novel on Audible.  I love to read but I cannot just sit on the couch and read a book.  There are things to do people!  That is precious time!  So I get efficient and listen to my books while I do laundry, wash dishes, put on my makeup etc.  My dad was a skeptic about Audible until I bought him a 3-month subscription for Christmas and let's just say he is a FAN now.  Try it!!

In a nutshell, I love to share things that inspire me with all of you!  I want this space to always be completely authentic, genuine, honest, and REAL.  You'll quickly realize I don't hide my flaws and even though it may hurt my "blogger profile", I love that you feel like you can RELATE to me.  I read a ton of blogs that I really like but I don't relate to these super rich, perfectly polished, ultra-toned women living in homes that HGTV would be jealous of.  Not that I'm knocking them because...

Truth?  I aspire to be this sort of woman but have almost no chance of ever becoming one myself.

It sucks, yes.  But what are you gonna do?  I am who I am and it's really not so bad.

I love hearing that you think we would be besties if we knew each other in real life!  Those are my favorite emails/comments to read. I hope you subscribe and follow along with the blog.  I love the community vibe from my blogger friends!

I'd love for you to join me on Facebook!  I post pretty regularly over there and would love to connect!  Find the page HERE.

Moving on...

OUR STORY

Craig and I have been married for 13 years.   He is a golden-hearted, bear of a man and retired NFL Quarterback.

I met Craig in college at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, LA in 2001 after he transferred over from LSU.  We dated for about 3 months during the first semester of my sophomore year, before he casually threw out the fact that after his graduation (that December) he would be moving to Denver for a month to train for the NFL Combine.  Um.  I'm sorry--what??  This was the first I had heard of NFL anything!  And since we were still pretty casual and I wanted no part in dealing with some NFL lifestyle while I was still just a sophomore and living it up at college, I promptly broke up with him.  #harsh #hemayhavecried 

But my man is a romantic and after enduring a couple of past relationships that left a lot to be desired, I was happy to be pursued, wooed and courted which is definitely what he did.  I got love letters and love emails and taken out on real dates when he was in town.  He called when he said he would and brought me to his hometown to hang out with his family.  We had fun together and were relaxed and completely ourselves around each other.

On April 21, 2002 (Craig's 23rd birthday!), he was drafted in the 5th round to the Green Bay Packers.  He served as a backup QB to Brett Favre for 4 years (and yes, Aaron Rodgers was drafted during this time as well...boo).  It was quite a birthday present but little did he know that 8 years later, he would get an even better one!  Our 2nd son was born on his birthday in 2010!

On the phone with the Packers right after they drafted him in the 5th round.  Sorry for the scanned in photo.  It was the only one I could find of this picture.

In April 2004, Craig and I flew to Hawaii for his agent's charity event.  He popped the question down on his knee right at sunset on the beach.  I'll post our full engagement story at some point.

We were married in Texarkana on March 19, 2005 and we started our life together in Green Bay, WI.  After Craig's contract with the Packers was up after 4 years, he signed with the Buffalo Bills to compete for the starting job there.

 After having an amazing first two days of training camp, Craig pulled his hamstring at the end of the 2nd day.  He was out for three weeks which crushed any hope for him to win that starting job.  I'll never forget the look on his face when he came out of the locker room that day.  We all knew that this was the chance that we'd all been praying for.  This was his shot to become a starting QB in the NFL.  This was what he was brought to the Bills to do.  And with that one hamstring pull, we all knew that it would be almost impossible to come back from that.  You don't get many chances to prove yourself when you are a 2nd and 3rd string QB behind Brett Favre.  The guy could have a broken leg, concussion and his right arm in a sling and probably still play the whole game AND throw for 4 touchdowns.  Seriously.  And now Craig was entering his 5th year in the NFL as a 3rd string QB.  Again.  All because he couldn't play for 3 weeks due that hamstring.

He finished out the season with the Bills and then bounced around his last couple of years with the Packers, Bills and Texans.  After 7 seasons in the NFL, Craig retired and we focused on the little baby boy that was growing in my tummy.  We settled down in Mckinney and began our "real life".

Craig's first NFL touchdown pass

I haven't written about football or felt all the emotions this is bringing up in a REALLY long time so I should stop before I start to bore you.  :)  But the NFL was a roller coaster of emotions.  Every single player and player's family will have a different story.  There are no two exactly the same.  Some have the amazing good fortune to get drafted by a team, become a star player, spend their entire careers there and never have to worry about money ever again. (And neither will their kids.  And their kids' kids.)  But some live every single day worrying if it will be their last.  If it will be the day that they get that call from the coach asking to see them in their office...and to bring their playbook.  That's pretty much the worst thing you can hear when you are on the bubble in the NFL.  For those guys, they never know if this final walk is their last day on a football team ever again.  There are no guarantees they'll be picked up by another team.  It's scary for them and their families.  Every single one of them worked so hard to get where they are and to have it all vanish in an instant can be heartbreaking.

Anyway, Craig is now doing private QB coaching in the DFW area as well as serving as one of Trent Dilfer's main coaches at his Elite 11 football camps that are held every year all over the nation.  He is also working on getting his Cajun Bread into stores.  What is Cajun Bread?  Well, I'm so glad you asked!  Cajun Bread started as something his mom made growing up.  It was a stuffed loaf of bread with sausage, onions, cheese, peppers and spices baked into the middle.  Craig has since developed it into stuffed dinner rolls and absolutely perfected the recipe.  It is amazingly good, yall.  More about it here.

MY LITTLES

Matthew Jay is my first born.  He is the one who turned me into a mommy.  He is incredibly kind-hearted, sensitive, cautious, smart, sweet and stubborn as can be.  He loves baseball, soccer, Minecraft (ugh), Pokemon cards (double ugh) and his hoverboard.  He would probably be an amazing quarterback if he wasn't afraid to put himself out there and agree to join a team.  He doesn't like to do things he's unsure of which I know comes from me.  He finds his comfort zone and sticks with it.  He was even like this as a baby.  He chose to army crawl and never got up on all fours.  It took him 13.5 months before he decided he'd better go ahead and learn to walk.  He was happy with his army crawling.  He never even saw the need to graduate to regular crawling because--comfort zone.

I am the same way and over the years have had to force myself to make the leap and try new things that are out of my comfort zone.  I'm hoping he'll learn to do the same.  He is about to turn 9 and I am completely blown away by how fast the time has gone.

Mason Presley is my baby.  He's 6 going on 16.  He is fearless.  (Which ironically, scares me to death.)  Mason will try anything that looks like fun.  He wants to play every sport, try any new trick, be the first one up the tree, and is usually happy to try new foods.  He is incredibly laid back, a bit clumsy and a complete slob.  As a baby, we called him Messy Mase because he just had a way of turning anything and everything into a giant mess.  More so than normal babies.

But Mason is also incredibly smart.  He picks up everything so quickly.  He was sleeping through the night by 6 weeks old, started walking at 9 months and was riding a bike with no training wheels on the first try when he was 3.  He has breezed through school so far and excelled at everything.  He is also kind and super sweet.  He loves to help his friends and his teachers and apparently is the first one to volunteer to clean up anything in his classroom.  (This switch flips to OFF at home I guess.)

Thankfully, both of my sweet boys love school and are total teacher pleasers.  I have never had to worry about them getting into trouble at school and for that I am so grateful.  Now let's just hope it sticks.  ;)

My favorite thing about Matthew and Mason though is how much they love each other.  They are best friends and I pray every day that it stays that way.  They are only 23 months apart so they are always into the same things and have a lot of mutual friends.  Watching them laugh together is my FAVORITE.  It melts my mama heart every time.

  So that's me.  Just a small introduction into our life!  I hope you stick around and follow our crazy chaos!

Find me on Instagram: @amandanall and @thatinspiredchick

Twitter: @amandanall

Facebook: HERE

Etsy:  HERE