The Luckiest No Matter What!

About a week ago, we lost our sweet kitty, Primrose. We had her almost ten years. During that time, she did a lot of things a typical cat would do. She chased lasers, made special noises when she saw other animals, slept in sunspots, shed all over furniture and people's clothing, meowed when any meat was in the kitchen, and tried to escape a few times. Prim also used to sleep in our bed between Josh and I under the covers and spent endless hours cuddling and snuggling.  As she got older, she also acted as a typical old lady cat might. She would pee on our beds if we ever left the door open, began to be picky about the food she ate, and had a few places that were her favorite to lay down and snooze. There was so much about her that was typical of a nice, friendly, family cat. But there is so much more to her story that makes her special. That nicknamed her Primrose: the healer.  How We Got Prim Family Photo: December 2011 The story of how I got the honor to take care of this wo...

This week is National Infertility Awareness Week. For whatever reason, I am noticing it being talked about by so many in the accounts I follow this year and I am SO glad. Thankful. If these resources and conversations were more at my fingertips when I was struggling years ago, I know I would've been overjoyed not to feel so alone. One of the posts I was just reading was about how many mixed emotions someone can feel going through infertility. I remember, during one of the hardest times for me, there were several people at work pregnant at the same time. I was, genuinely, happy for them and I hope they each felt that from me. I also went back and forth on whether I actually COULD show up to their baby showers. I didn't know if I could handle it, my heart so broken and so hopeless. Mixed Emotions of Infertility After years of infertility, these are the first pictures of my twins <3  I was joyful and deeply, deeply sad at the same time. It was really weird. I literally agonized...

Anyone in my life knows I haven't handled this pandemic very well.  It's a perfect cocktail of the extremely high expectations I put on myself + an incredible sense of responsibility for my children's education, mental health, and well being + wanting to do everything + wanting to do everything well + being an anxious worrier + little to no alone time or break from... well... anything = a sh*t storm for me.  My mom has been on the receiving end of teary phone calls from me more times than I can count.  My group chats have been on the receiving end of many pictures of dumpster fires to describe how it's going at my house on any given day.  And I have been on the receiving end of text messages from friends checking in to see how I am doing (thank you, profusely, by the way).  I sometimes find myself, after an occasional good cry in the shower (shower cries are just the BEST aren't they?! Such a good way to let things out), thinking there HAS to hav...

Because of everything going on with the unrest in our country, it seems a bit silly to be posting this as we have so much to be heavy about right now. However, I write to capture moments in time- to tell my story, my family's story. This pandemic, this quarantine is certainly something I want to remember. So I share my thoughts, here, in real time... I am a rule-follower by nature- it is inside of me at my core, in my soul. You can ask my parents for verification and they will tell you. I also work extremely well with limits and boundaries. I thrive in knowing what is expected of me. When our governor said, many weeks ago, stay home- that seemed clear. I understood those limits of see no one, go in public as little as possible, stay at least six feet away. So my family did just that- we saw no one, we stayed home, we barely went out in public except to get food. The only time I interacted with anyone was from a six feet distance. Although these weeks have been difficult a...

During 2020, I'm TRYing something new! Every year I have so much I want to accomplish and change and focus on. I'm a super goal-driven person so, to be honest, sometimes the new year makes my head a little dizzy. There are always so many things I want to do and achieve and it's hard for me to focus and be intentional to see real difference, real change. That's why I got into doing this #oneword thing in the first place. Only choosing one word instead of a myriad of bullet points or some lengthly serial comma of a resolution helps me zero in and narrow what I'm working towards. I really think it's helped me. This will be my third or fourth year choosing only a single word as the foundation of my new year so I was ready to change things up a bit.  My family is all in a group chat. As this new year was coming, we started talking about what some of our resolutions might be. We always happen to share about this because I think it gets all of our good smart juic...

Friday we took Carter to see our pediatrician. He was covered in bruises.  If you know my son, you'd think that bruises were very much a part of his daily life and you'd be absolutely right. There is no one else I know that runs into more things, falls down, and just generally plays with more gusto than he does. Some of his first and most often-used words are: "I'm okay!" as he gets up from yet another wipe out.  Needless to say, it took us a bit of time to realize that this current bruising might be abnormal. It happened slowly... Carter was unable to articulate how bruises had gotten on parts of his body. We would touch the bruises and they didn't hurt at all, which struck me as strange. He was also bruising in situations where I thought most people wouldn't.  Cater leg bruising- these were also all over his arms The last straw that had me making an appointment with our pediatrician was when my mom, the nurse, said, "hmmmmmmmm" when sh...

I am a walking stereotype... I am a Virgo and basically encompass every single trait I've ever read about that sign. Virgos tend to be extremely responsible, a planner, meticulous, over-critical and judgmental (of themselves probably more than others), neat, selective, economical, worriers, highly determined, and sometimes harsh. Check, check, check. I'm also a first born. I follow essentially every psychologists research on what a first born might be like. First-borns are often reliable, people-pleasing, rule-followers, goal oriented, conscientious, critical, control freaks, scholarly, leaders, and well organized. Again... CHECK. You can see, as you look at these traits, how much Virgos and first-borns share. This is a powerful, dangerous cocktail, I can assure you.  I kinda hate that I am SUCH a cookie cutter of both of these things, but even the fact that I don't like how much  I fall into the natural roles of these things also perpetuated th...