this week

Like I stated before, I don't plan on trying to catch up on two years away form blogging. SO much has happened. A lot to do with me actually? A little over two years ago I was on a slow, gradual, bumpy decline into severe depression. The decline was slow until all a sudden it wasn't and I wanted to end my life. I plan on sharing my journey back to health over time, in no particular order.

Today, I'll start with this week.

...Actually, I guess to start with this week, I need to do a quick update-- mid December we bought an 110 year old farm house in Centerton (right down the road from friends that are pretty much family). We are LITERALLY re-doing everything in and out of the house. Anyways the PLAN was to do all the demo and have it painted and somewhat pretty before we move in....Well we got a full price offer on our home we were currently living in in less than two weeks....so we had to move out, and in to the Old Girl (that's what we affectionately call the farmhouse) way sooner than planned. Read: Blessing/Curse. I found I actually LOVE doing demo, learning to be pretty confident with power tools and such. We were so freaking busy it was awesome and I was loving every minute.

|front of the Old Girl|

Then about a month ago Chad's parents (who were here helping) left and working on the house slowed, and the dust figuratively and literally settled. I felt myself slowly go from happy+energetic to slowly apathetic to slowly sad in the course of about a month.

|back of the Old Girl, the day we signed|

I was checking all my boxes off: not stretching myself thin with commitments, eating healthy, sleeping, spiritually feeding myself daily with actual studying the scriptures...yada yada yada. I went for a long walk and just talked to God. What else was I supposed to do? I don't want to live a life of apathy/sadness most of the time and sometimes happy. That's when I heard the little whisper to bring my blog back to life. To write and share the good and bad, and connect with people again (let alone document this whole remodel!). Writing, documenting my life has beautiful way of helping me really think my thoughts through, and also to naturally find the positive in situations.

So here we are!

Documenting and sharing also blesses me because I get to look back and read, and remember.

I read THIS post and boom. Another answer to my prayer. I started thinking about being a midwife and how it really checks so many of my boxes:  Health care professional, my own boss, serve, work with and empower women, spiritual, kinda hippy, the job is different every day....I mean my list goes on.

You know when something feels right you smile so much your face might break, your heart beats faster and everything is beautiful again? Well that happened. I heard another whisper: This is the right track.

So, I call my midwife and long story short I have an interview in a week about being an apprentice. Wish me luck!

side note- Today is my last day of my 20's! I've been looking forward to my 30's for a long time. I think its going to be MY decade.

resurrection

The past few weeks I have felt the nudge to bring my blog back.

I am not even going to try to "catch up" from the past TWO YEARS I haven't touched my blog.

So much has happened the in two years, I am sure a lot of it will resurface as I share my thoughts with the world again.

So for now, here is my sweet Eden, dancing to "single ladies" on our front porch. As one does on a sunny Friday in February.

Tonight I am going to tinker around on here and attempt a facelift, and re-learn how to be an efficient post-er, (I used to be so dang fast I had it down to a science!)

Wish me luck!

...Did I mention were living in a 110 year old farm house that we are remodeling?

big, bold, blonde(?) 2014

So, I wasnt kidding.

I ditched my smart phone. I seriously feel like I am in college again texting my boyfriend late at night or something. I keep laughing at it, not out of disgust but just cause its funny to me for some reason! It's only been 24 hrs but I must say, I love it. It is almost embarrassing how I would just check my phone whenever I had a moment of down time. WHAT A WASTE.

Each year I get into New Years a little more. Maybe because I love setting goals?

ANYWAY. Here are mine, my goals, some big some not-so-big:

• Be more present: ditch the smart phone! CHECK.
• Read: Anne of Green Gables (I never have, and it apparently is a must)
• Go blonde. For real, I have ALWAYS wanted to. Why not now? *gulp* I want to grow my hair out too...but still not completely sold on that idea just yet.
• Get back to my athlete-self. I dont like comparing myself to the past. I want to find my NEW athlete-me. This third baby has taking me forever to "bounce back", throw in a move and miscarriage on top of that and I am just *physically* not where I am comfortable. 
• Host at least one magical, creative dinner party
• Get away for more than one night with Chad
• Lose my filter. Well, maybe not totally lose. But I filter what I say too much (in my opinion, and Chad agrees). I want to be more bold and say exactly what I think. 
• Focus on planning. Meals, work-outs, activities, just everything. I thrive on structure. I want to get THIS planner so bad it hurts. Need to start saving and just do it! My friend showed me hers and it blew my mind, its laid out how my brain thinks! And I am the girl that has to physically write stuff down, not type. 
• Execute. I have a lot of good ideas and I let them simmer....and then they fade. NO more. I just need to jump and DO IT. 

And there you have it.

2014 is going to be awesome.

2014

My new years resolutions:

To be more present: I no longer have a smart phone starting tomorrow. BOOM.

To lose 30 freaking pounds. 

Bring it, 2014

homeless for the (post) holidays?

As the molasses cookies cook and cool,

I sit here kind of like this.

Lots on my mind. Good stuff, that is perplexing.

We thought we had it all figured out with the house stuff.

Long story short we have put multiple offers in, on a 125 year old house, land, brand new, and medium old houses and things just are connecting.

The funny thing is, is that we are not worried at all. We just have a solid feeling of peace that the right thing is just around the corner. And maybe tomorrow, it will be!

Keep your fingers crossed for us ok? We close on our house mid January...and it'd be kinda nice to have a place to live.

on loss, and gratitude, and then on both.

Do you ever get hit directly in the heart with a piercing arrow of gratitude?

Thats how I felt a few minutes ago.

I have always been one to feel fully saturated emotions.

Some people accuse women of being "too emotional" or "too sensitive". I feel very blessed that I can feel things with such force. I'd like to think it leads me to live my life richly, deeply.

Becoming a mother has made me feel things even more. I recently watched this video about empathy vs sympathy (MUST watch). I think becoming a mom has made me more empathetic, not emotional. And maybe the accusation that women are too sensitive or emotional, is wrong, and we're just empathetic? My first reaction is to now climb down the latter and share the experience with the person, instead of poking my head down the hole and trying to find the positive.  I find my self tearing up pretty often. Its funny how my body reacts to emotions, I must express it, if not with words or a deliberate action, with it leaking out my eyes?

I took this picture about five seconds ago. 

And I was a teary mess.

But for good reasons, let me explain:

I just finished reading a beautiful, sad, moving essay about a still birth.

She writes very raw. 

Personally, I have never experienced the loss of a child. I did lose my mother as a child, and I have had a miscarriage (writing that makes me feel like I'm writing down my credentials...so not trying to come across like that). My experience was not the exact same as hers, but the emotions and some of the questions I had during the loss were similar. 

Loss is an interesting thing. For a long time I found myself having somewhat of a fatalist mindset. Meaning, that I assumed the people in my life that I love the most, would die before old age. Really, I did believe that. I still have to talk myself down sometimes. Eden's whole pregnancy I was convinced she wasn't going to live. I am getting better. It used to mean I had a hard time really attaching myself to others, to giving my whole heart to them because when you lose someone that has your heart, part of you is lost, too. 

But becoming a mother, you have no choice, that baby takes your heart the minute you learn about them. At least for me. Which has been so good for me.

Another interesting thing about loss is trying to not have "fear based gratitude" is what I call it. Being grateful for someone because you never know when they'll leave/die. Being grateful for someone because maybe there is a unseen correlation between how grateful I am and the longevity of life? Am I making sense? Loss has taught me so much. At first it obviously made me very, very guarded. But it has, over time, changed me and refined me to be a better woman.

Back to the picture: I walked into Maggie's room (hello big girl bed!?!) and teared up with gratitude for my husband for snuggling her to sleep, for Maggie and the firecracker she is. For the joy that these two bring into my life. And I got teary because I wasn't scared. My gratitude was pure gratitude, that faint after taste of fear never came. And for me, that is a big deal.

cookies and salsa

Today I made crappy gingerbread cookies! Yay!

But, thankfully, we all know cream cheese frosting makes everything delicious.

 After cleaning up the aftermath of rolling out the dough/cutting the cookies on the table I was not really  wanting to deal with kids+frosting+sprinkles at that moment.

SO. We treated the cookies as chips and the frosting as salsa and had a partay!

Highly recommend!