Encouragement

6:15. It's time. My eyes peep open, and I can see the light blue of the morning sky through the window. I have to try harder today. I will. I will try harder than yesterday. I will do better. Coffee warms my bones, and I begin to perk up. The morning still feels so daunting, despite the promise I made to myself when I got up. I go through the motions of dressing kids, signing papers for school, getting myself dressed but I want so badly to crawl back into that bed, turn out every light and sleep it all away.  Instead, I eagerly wash down the pills I always hope will magically take this from me, but instead they just...

My older son will be 4 years old in a week and, like so many parents, each year I find myself looking back at pictures and reflecting on his birthday. What does his birthday mean to us? How has this day impacted us? How have we spent every birthday before this one? In June of 2014 we got the exciting news that we were expecting our first child. We went through the first half of our pregnancy thinking everything was perfect. At my 20 week anatomy scan, we were told that our son had a two vessel umbilical cord. Most babies have three blood vessels: one vein, which brings nutrients from the placenta to the baby, and two arteries that...

My mom says I am the least sentimental person ever. It may be true, and it may not. For the most part, I’ve never been one that has attached myself to physical objects. I have one or two boxes of things that I have kept from childhood that I feel guilty getting rid of. I have a photo of my grandpa that I miss dearly on display as well as a streetcar he made me, but other than than family photos hung on the wall, there’s not much more. While I have become much more sentimental with the birth of my children, I still would admit I don’t attach feelings and memories to physical objects as much as others do. With...

Self-help is a genre of reading that I usually gravitate to. They can be motivating, eye-opening, affirmative, and useful for different areas of my life. It can be a overwhelming genre since every single book promises a better life and thought process. I have read really BAD self-help books. Some have even made me feel even worse about myself when I was done. Some I quit after a chapter or two. A good self-help book "clicks" with you pretty early on. I have found myself reading things in these books and saying "Yes!!!" out loud because finally someone gets me! I really did like Girl, Go Wash Your Face by Rachel Hollis. It took me 3 days on a beach...

A year ago last December, I started on a journey. We moved to Baton Rouge a little over a year before then, and as I was in the long process of unpacking, I could not find the bathroom scale. I decided this was a pleasant thing to lose and thought I would just enjoy life without one. But since my clothes were feeling more snug and my face looked fuller, I looked for the scale a little more diligently, and unfortunately found it. I hopped on and was surprised to see I was at my highest non-pregnancy weight. I knew I needed to change my habits and my relationship with food.  It took me a few weeks to decide what...