Category Archives: Me Time

I LOVE my coffee. I NEED my coffee. In the morning it gets me going. Sad but true, my coffee is usually what gets me out of bed every morning, makes me wake up. Literally, it’s the excitement of knowing that I can have my coffee when I pull (sometimes tear) myself out of my comfy bed and scuffle out to the kitchen. It’ll be ok. I can pour my coffee and creamer and somehow I’ll have the strength to begin my day. My husband usually wakes up earlier, works out and gets the coffee brewing. Ummm, coffee is the best smell to wake up to on a cool crisp morning.

Since we have been visiting my family in ‘no-mans-land’ so we could attend my grandma’s memorial service, the busy days tend to run together and make chasing my son more tiring. My parents have an esspresso machine that makes the best lattes. Something about a homemade double (or triple) shot latte instead of a pot of coffee…well, there’s no contest!  With many flavor choices available, and it being morning,  I must choose hot and steamed with a thick, dense high cloud of foam, not iced. This seemingly little factor of an avaliable espresso machine makes it extra exciting for me to wake up in the morning knowing this special treat, right at my fingertips, will only last one more day. I try and take advantage of this glorious hot cup of “black gold” that brightens my perspective of waking up early.

Today is our last morning in ‘no-mans-land’ and I am sipping on my perfect latte, pausing to allow the taste and moment to linger. Earlier as I headed down stairs and straight to my mom’s kitchen to prepare this steaming cup, I wondered if fervent hope could somehow transfer this marvelous machine to our kitchen, mysterously by tomorrow morning. I think not.

It’s the little things that make me smile and get me through the day. :)

Do you ever realize that all of social media portrays a happy timeline? Facebook has this incredible timeline you can share with “friends.” Why is it that everyone on Facebook happens to have the most amazing family trips, family dinners, camping trips, and birthday parties. Do we ever see the cake our 4 year old got into, the camping trip that kept mom and dad up all night, the dinner party where the glass of wine shattered and spilt, and the awkward family dinner with tension that overtakes the conversations. All of this actually happened to someone I know, but the reality is we sweep it under the rug and post the picture that shows the kids smiling or the awesome new outfit we just bought. Do you get my drift?

Twitter is very similar, all the comments that are chipper or a putdown towards someone else to make ourselves feel better, keep the twitter world sailing smoothly.

My goal here is to display a life of pure honesty; laying out the good and the bad, the joy and despair, and the blessings and curses. The reality is every single one of us has, and will go through hurt and pain. The problem is the thought of feeling vulnerable, judge, persecuted, and unworthy fills our minds before we embark on the honesty train. I will take the stand and be real with the good and the bad because I want everyone to know they are not alone.

My simple conviction

One of the hardest things for me is lying in bed alone, helpless and in pain. Wishing I could change my circumstance but also somehow feeling peace from God that he is giving me the strength to get through. My heart aches as I watch my sleeping son, so innocent and pure. I do not want him to experience the pain in this world as my husband and I have. I would do anything to protect him from lying in bed, alone, helpless and in pain. I want to protect this little man so desperately.

As I watch his father, my heart continues the ache. I see the helplessness, fear, pain, depression, anger and hopelessness sink into him. It has officially overtaken him. My heart breaks because this world is so painful yet so incredible. There is this awesome hope and peace I long for my family to experience. I walked the path of rebellion, the path of despair, the path of hopelessness. I have been there! I am on the other side right now and wish others could follow in the steps of my words and truly experience the deep love of Christ. We search and hunt for a fulfillment of pure love and acceptance, we search our whole lives for this, yet God created this place for Him, but we will fight to our death sometimes to find it in anything and everything except Him.

“Pain is weakness leaving the body” I heard this quote and was taken aback by it. The reality is that trials are difficult and painful most of the time. What’s your initial response when you here “pain is weakness leaving the body.” Your circumstances today, the pain you experience, are you learning from it or dodging it?

We are all on a hunt, a hunt for something more. Are we ever satisfied with life; I mean really, do we ever feel complete contentment with our circumstances? We are constantly striving for more. What if we stopped and were thankful for the current day and what we have been blessed with. How would our circumstances change?

My husband is on a work trip traveling to Oklahoma. He sent me a few pictures from the tornados yesterday. Strip malls completely emptied out and standing metal is all that remains. Wood piles, signs, and belongings all stripped away. Houses crumbled with only foundation remaining. Cars destroyed. This was a reality check for me. Even though I am not present in Oklahoma, the pictures did enough for me to realize how quickly we can lose everything, literally. Today he sent me pictures on his way back to the airport of the Oklahoma City Bombing memorial site; such a sad devastating situation yet a beautiful memorial. This was a good reminder as to the “stress” in the day and if I lost everything, what would remain and still hold importance; my family. That’s all that I truly care about even in the midst of distractions.

These are my simple thoughts for the evening.

The knots begin to form in the pit of my tummy, racing butterflies through my heart and a hint of nausea running through my brain. This is what I call Fear. I have such a problem with being fearful that it can paralyze me if I allow it. I have to catch myself and talk through the feelings welling up inside me. I’ve spoke previously that everybody is driven by fear on some level or another but some people (ie ME) struggle with it on a frequent basis.

Today was a beautiful Autumn day as I began packing for our five day extravaganza or shall I say, the family reunion while we all join to celebrate the life of my grandma as she passed away this last week. I love my grandma dearly and my heart is sad for us left behind but I have confidence she is with my grandpa and Jesus waiting for us all to join her in heaven.

With that said I have been prepping and getting excited to head out and see the family this evening. I have had many conversations with my husband about my fear and just as he has things that drive him in one direction or another, fear is a frequent conversation. He simply doesn’t understand the depths of my struggle, nor do I expect him to, but we are on completely different ends of the spectrum. This is where grace and understanding are required in a marriage. It’s interesting how we all have triggers that make us want to run from a conversation and our defenses pick up immediately. Have you ever thought how our brain can process thousands of thoughts in less than five seconds and our reactions come before we even have the chance to think if it’s the right reaction or not. It actually is a fascinating concept. Needless to say, in the middle of a conversation with my husband this afternoon, we were joking around and within seconds, literally seconds, the defenses came up. Sometimes we think it comes from left field, but we all know our triggers and our spouse’s triggers as well. Even though I approached him in a very respectful manner, his immediate reaction was defensive and then moments of silence.

The frustration now presently taking over my body, “I approached him respectfully, quietly, and honestly, why the heck is he reacting,” I think to myself. As I go on with my day, I have this unsettled feeling residing inside me, even though I am trying to move on and not let him affect my response. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t quite shake the feeling, the fear was not only bubbling up inside me; it was a raging boil. I had to calm myself wondering why it had that extreme effect on me. I began to realize God is in control of our circumstances whether they are good or bad, he is in control and allows everything to proceed through his hands. EVERYTHING that touches our lives, he has already approved it. When I thought that through, my fear began to be stilled, the quiet waters as I previously known as a raging boil just seconds ago. I know I have to trust the Lord in ALL THINGS, so if I truly believe that, than my response needs to leave my fear in the hands of my Heavenly Father. I am responsible for my actions from that moment forward, not his.

I’m not claiming that this is an easy response, but it truly is amazing how God can quickly shake the fear inside me. Fear is not from the Lord, and it has a strong hold on my life that I am in the process of releasing. I’ve been in the midst of the fire with my fear for honestly, a couple years. I’ve had fear all my life, but the last couple years have really ignited the fire to unleash full force. Due to my husband respectfully talking this through with me, I have been standing face to face that this does have a control on my life that is not healthy. I am a clay pot being molded, we all are. It does not happen overnight, a beautiful pot takes time to be refined and fill in the cracks; don’t’ we all want to be moldable and teachable? This was the reality of my fear today.

Moment of Truth:

Psalms 91

Do you ever have those moments when a smell brings you back to a happy place, a childhood moment, a memory you long to place but can’t quite put your finger on? I have those now and again although, one recently has been driving me crazy. I can’t physically smell it, it’s in my memory and I long to smell and taste this sweet fragrance I’ve recently recalled. This smell is a tea I had at one point and it brings me back to Fall and the coziness of snuggling up in my jammies on the couch and sipping a sweet cup of tea while watching a movie with my husband. I’ve asked my friend who is a tea fanatic if I could come over and smell her tea drawer to see if I could place it.

While hunting through her many teas I ran across one that seemed to be perfect, it was a winter solstice from Peets Coffee. Now this makes sense, it only comes around once a year, she brewed me a cup and I sipped the sweet black tea and enjoyed our conversations while our kids played together. The following day I ran to the store to fill up our selection of tea in our household as the weather is now permitting this to be a frequent “go to” drink. As I was thumbing through all the different types of tea while allowing my son to shake all the boxes to quietly entertain him, I grabbed quite a few teas all different flavors, some I had never tried before.

To my surprise that evening I brewed myself a cup of tea from Good Earth’s blend called Sweet and Spicy. Heaven rained down on me. This was the tea, the one I had been searching for all along. I was sitting in glorious bliss while utterly shocked I found it, the blessed tea I had been hunting for was sitting in my mug here in my very own home without even knowing it. All along I thought the Winter Solstice was the tea as something didn’t seem quite right it was pretty darn close, but as I said, heaven did rain down in this cup of Good Earth Sweet and Spicy tea.

I couldn’t bring myself to try any of the other teas considering I had longed for months to sip this sweet yet spicy tea. I finally tried another tea a few days later called Bengal Spice and I must say, the spice is what I love, this tea was very similar and now I know what satisfies my palette.

It’s great to place the smells and taste that bring a memory up as they often don’t get found. I can proudly say, this one did get found and brought me to a happy place..

Let me start by saying me deep hatred for spiders, I’m sure you remember that from previously, but it’s a great reminder!!! This week was our week to clean the pool and I have been so consumed with packing for our trip. I headed down to the pool wondering why we haven’t closed it for the winter yet. I bundled Cooper up and we walked down with him the in stroller to keep him contained while I cleaned.

As we were there, I was trying to whisk the leaves off the top of the water as I spotted a MASSIVE spider, Probably the biggest spider I have yet to see let alone that close to me. Okay, it was dead in the pool but it was HUGE and I really felt as though there were other ones about to crawl all over me. I could just see it now: me running around freaking out from this massive creature crawling on me. Falling into the pool while Cooper sits in his stroller laughing as he thinks mommy is quite entertaining when really I am about to have a heart attack.

Okay, this didn’t happen but I basically dreamt it that it became real to me. I had to take a picture of this creature as it was so big no one would truly believe me with just a description. I took a picture and haven’t been able to look at it since because it will make me relive the situation all over again and give me nightmares, literally. I believe you all need to see this picture and share in the horror I experienced while alone in the cold with my son an a really large COLD pool.

I had to reach my hands into the filters to clean them out and you can imagine the fear that pierced me after seeing this large creature just a couple feet away dead in the pool. Now I know that just because you see one does not mean another one is lurking around the corner, but in my mind it had to be true. My hands were about to enter the dark, cold filter and I could only picture an alive one crawling on my timid hands as I am supposed to take out all the leaves that have accumulated from the stormy weather the last couple days.

Luckily I did survive this afternoon excursion, barely, but I did survive. :)

Note* I just mentioned to my husband how I couldn’t even look at what I was posting as I added this picture. He said “Wasn’t it was the size of a quarter?” My response “Are you seriously kidding me (sounding annoyed), the legs alone were 3-4 inches long, no joke. I did NOT zoom in while I took the picture.” His response…..laughter…and more laughter.

Could it be my thyroid, anorexia, cancer, hormones, or more? The dreadful word “cancer” is not something you want mentioned while sitting for two hours at the doctors office waiting for your blood to be drawn…

“It could be cancer” my Doctor mentions along with the dreadful fact that she doesn’t know what is wrong with me. The continual battle of losing 4-6 pounds on a biweekly basis has been not only a scary thing for my husband and I but also for my son whom I breastfeed.

The long drawn out process for the last year has been way more than anticipated. I figured having a child would be the biggest hump and moving forward would be the recovery process. For most people yes, but for me, it’s another story. Having the HELLP syndrome during delivery (if you haven’t read my birthing story, click here) has literally changed my life. Fourteen months later, many doctors’ appointments, blood work, stress, and constant weight problems have worn my body thin. I’ve seen many doctors, had many medical bills and much time spent “wasted” in the office while trying to entertain my little son.

One of the first appointments in January was when my thyroid was off. I’ve never had issues with my thyroid but the more I found out, the more I was told it could be temporary and some women get post thyroid issues that do end up resolving themselves. The follow up appointment two weeks later resulted in my thyroid levels being normal; this confusing factor forced my doctor to send me to a specialist. She was very concerned that the weight kept falling off while we were in search of the real solution. In the meantime I had been keeping a food diary documenting my 3,000-3500 calorie diet a day. The issues clearly weren’t because I wasn’t eating enough, so in the meantime I was sent to a nutritionist to help eat a healthy diet while hoping to gain weight or at minimum, maintain. Having my son with me made attending doctor appointments not so easy, so I kept putting off the nutritionist as my main focus was to find out if I was dying of cancer.

I wound up at my general physicians office as it was taking way too long for OHSU to get me scheduled for an appointment. While at her office she did explain that many things could be happening in my body especially when a lot of trauma occurs. This conversation became harder and harder as I sat with her going over many options. She was very candid with me and said cancer unfortunately could be something that may be attacking everything good in my body causing me to lose weight so quickly. While my son is sitting in the stroller playing with some toys I tried to keep the tears from rolling down my cheeks. This sweet baby boy and my husband would be my motivation to fight anything that came my way. Having a husband who lost his father as a young boy makes me very cautious as to preventing to the best of my ability that my son wouldn’t experience the same thing, and that my husband wouldn’t experience another extreme loss. Ultimately knowing I don’t have the power and control, I do know the only thing I could do, would be to have a good outlook and do any treatments possible.

Now, we don’t want to jump the gun here, we don’t even know if this is something that is happening but let me start by saying NO ONE ever wants to have the beginning conversations to this topic. Why would I be any different? What would keep me from getting this deadly disease? These are questions I began to think about. I don’t really remember having this conversation with my husband immediately. I didn’t even tell him what was going on because I didn’t want to bring worry over nothing. A couple weeks went by as I was waiting for my blood results. They tested EVERYTHING possible in my blood. What a blessing, my blood work came back great.

“Healthy as an ox” says the Doctor. Well, that’s what we like to think. Now the reality is my weight loss still hadn’t been figured out. I’ve had extreme stressors the last year but at the same time I’ve kept a food diary that is pretty consistent, my blood work has come back normal for the most part so what could be going on. Well, a couple months passed throughout the beginning stages of the first doctor appointments and I found a lump under my chin. Was this the answer, was this the ongoing problem and I finally found it? I had my husband feel it and he was mortified how big it was and how it just poked out under my chin. Back to the doctors again……

This time, the doctor felt it and without a question said it was a lymph node. Now this isn’t always a positive thing to hear either. The reality is I had this lump for a few months before I realized it could be a problem.  When we couldn’t figure out my weight loss, I began to wonder if there was a correlation. She said to watch it for a month, sometimes when you fight a cold they can swell. I explained that this hasn’t changed in size; maybe bigger, but definitely not smaller. This grew a slight concern to her, but not enough to get an immediate ultrasound. So, I watched it, and watched it. Still nothing has changed. Now, this time I didn’t want to go back because an ultrasound would tell me if I need to worry. I put off going for quite some time until my husband finally expressed his concern and desire to simply know the answer. I made the appointment and of course with my luck they had to give me another referral to head to yet another location for the ultrasound. Now at this point, I am beyond exhausted and truly don’t want to mess with it anymore. This doctor reassured me it was probably nothing and that the main reason why I found it was due to the extreme weight loss. With my chipmunk cheeks previously I wouldn’t have noticed it but because of the ongoing issues she still advised the ultrasound.

Here we are 14 months after my delivery and 9 months since the beginning of all the doctor appointments and I still haven’t fulfilled the ultrasound. My last appointment definitely made me feel more confident that nothing was going on and simply the weight loss has made things more noticeable on my body.

All of this to say, I have had ongoing issues, but my biggest goal has been at minimum, maintain my weight and if possible put some pounds on. I’ve considered that my body may think this is the new “normal,” so I am accepting this fact while being cautious that I can lose weight very quickly and that this is something to be aware of and to conquer.

I’ve been so excited to plant my first garden but at the same time I haven’t been able to embark on this territory. Considering our house just sold and if I had started it, the new neighbors would be receiving the wealth. Not that leaving these goodies behind for the new owners is a bad thing, but having to start all over was not really exciting for me, especially since this would be my first garden.

Our new house has an incredible garden area full of weeds; looks like a meadow actually. Some of our friends came over to see the new place and the work we had done, they brought us a bunch of herbs that I was so excited about. Although I wasn’t sure how to care for them and how often they would need a drink, I decided this was the first steps.  To ease myself into it, I left these herbs on my front porch for two weeks keeping it simple; a drink of water once a day. We left town for the 4^th of July and when we returned my herbs were definitely struggling to stay alive. I did think ahead and put them in our flower bed to allow the automatic sprinkler to help water while we were gone; even though this wasn’t enough water, I had hoped they were still salvageable.

I had a concern of losing the life of my herbs considering I have never had a garden before and I’ve killed many items I’ve been responsible for previously. Getting married to my husband allowed me to start on this adventure. He had about 5 live plants in his house that I took responsibility for; he’d often question if they were getting watered, which was a good reminder that they needed a good, long drink. I started getting in the habit and even though they have had their rough moments in life I’ve managed to grow them quite well.

With that being said, I’ve transplanted two of my 6 herbs and they have literally flourished. The other three of the four are actually hanging on to life pretty well, they were hanging by a thread but have managed to start producing well enough that I can transplant them now. The last one unfortunately is gone. Dry sticks are really all that remains. This was my cilantro, I love cilantro, either I’m too lazy to throw it out, or I have some hope still, that in the midst of the desert it may actually still have some life somewhere in that dirt.

Tonight was the second time I’ve been able to use my herbs, it was very exciting. The meadows on the other hand will have to wait till next year. There is a lot of work that needs to be done and more dirt will need to be brought in. I’ve realized that the inside of the house is my main focus right now until the sun returns next spring.

The other day I was meeting a gal who I’ve asked to “mentor” me. I really want a lady who has been married longer than I, who has experienced life a lot more than I, and has a lot of wisdom, advice and godly character to share with me. This gal is great. I’ve got to know her pretty well the last year and I’ve reached the point where now, I have a little more time on my hands.

We met for lunch the other day, as if the day wasn’t busy enough with Michael being home for a couple of interviews, trying to help him prep, feed the family, etc. I was rushing to get to lunch on time and take the little blueberry with me. Lunch was at an unnamed restaurant due to the popularity of this place, I don’t want to mention it. After I ordered my food, I had to take it back because it was the wrong order. They fixed my order and gave me the first lunch as well as my actual order considering they have to throw it out anyways. My little man was upset when I went to do this because he is going through separation anxiety due to his age. I am rushing around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to not leave Cooper with her, exchange my meal and get my drink all at the same time. (This was not fast food, Subway, Quiznos, etc)

Finally I sit down, start feeding cooper some soup, take a deep breath and enjoy some conversation with Laurie while catching up on the chaos of life. Mid conversation I take a bite of soup and wind up with a huge plastic chunk rolling around in my mouth. DISGUSTING! I spit it out mortified as well as paranoid that this was ever so easy to have wound up in Coopers mouth. I sit there in awe while Laurie was trying to figure out what we should do. She was so concerned for Cooper; he could have chocked. I do not like to make a scene and be “that” person, but at the same time I really felt strongly that they needed to know. There were a lot of kids at the restaurant eating soup all around me, I felt strongly they needed to throw that batch of soup away. I walked up to the counter and asked for the manager. This man was beyond helpful. He let me order anything else I wanted, threw the batch of soup away, and apologized immensely. At that point I wasn’t even hungry so I got it to go. This basically took our entire lunch hour and was just one of those days; something was bound to have happened.

I ate it for lunch once I got home even though I had this eerie feeling something else gross was going on in my lunch. I didn’t run across anything else but once you experience that, you tend to remember anything can happen when you are eating bulk food at a restaurant. Kind of gross to think about. It did remind me of the one and only time I ate at TGI Fridays, when I drank a diet coke. Once I reached the bottom of my coke I saw a beverage napkin soaked in the bottom of my cup. To my knowledge, this cup missed the dishwasher and probably was full of germs. I never ate there again. So sick!

Now if you go out to eat today… enjoy and have a great time without plastic and napkins!