The Luckiest No Matter What!

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...

If you know me well, you know it took me a looooooooooooong time to get a smart phone.  Paying a ridiculous amount of money on internet at home AND internet on my cell phone was too much for my frugal mind to bear. Nope, negative, never.  Time passed, years actually, and I continued with my non-smart phone. I really didn't mind whatever I was missing out on until I really started to miss out on things. My phone became so outdated that I began not to be able to get any emojis. A small problem, certainly, but when someone would tell me something, it was sometimes hard for me to sense the tone of things. I'd get a box or two, which I knew were emojis, but who knows which ones!? Did she just send me a wink to tell me she was kidding or a mad face to tell me she wasn't? Did he just put the middle finger up or the clapping hands? Those are very different takeaways.  I also started not being able to get group texts... at all. Think about how often you are texting with severa...

Mistakes are tricky for me.  I know I make hundreds of them a day. But, I work tirelessly, to the point of exhaustion, to prevent myself from making them. Mistakes are where our greatest learning and unlearning takes place, which makes them extremely necessary. However, when I make mistakes, I'm simultaneously tearing myself down to shreds while  learning and unlearning. I outwardly embrace mistake making, encourage it both to my own children and the students I've served. Inwardly, though, the thought of possibly making a mistake makes me nervous and sometimes downright terrified.  I am working on my complicated relationship with mistakes and failures in therapy. I have been reacquainted with why this tricky relationship exists, where it came from, and what triggers it. I'm slowly working on how to sit with the feelings that making a mistake bring to me... uncomfortable ones of sadness and failure. Finally, I am learning how I can help myself  feel better and mo...

One of my reasons for writing anything down is to preserve my story in this big, big world. Putting my fingers on these typing keys help make my family's memories have a place to sit so I can revisit them whenever I want and remember, soak it all back in.  Time is a thief! I can't remember the last time I captured what's going on with #hundtboysx4: what they are into, what they love, what's been challenging for them. It always feels overwhelming to do that kind of necessary memory preserving justice, but I always try and that's what matters.  Here's whats up with the Hundt Boys... NOLAN N loves to do these jumping pictures and I am always ready to say yes. This guy is more than 7.5 years old. This last year during the pandemic has arguably been the hardest on him of my four sons... outwardly anyway. He has lost sports, which he loves more than any other activity. He has only been able to build a relationship with his teacher over a screen, which is the most impo...

 I am a writer. As I type that out, I immediately want to erase it, take it back, and blush with embarrassment. I am not classically trained, or frankly, trained at all. Until a year ago, I had no idea what passive voice was (or how much I liked using it). I struggled to teach my own students writing conventions because I often didn't know them myself. I have learned more about prefixes and suffixes as well as Latin and Greek roots from my second grade sons this year than I ever remember learning in school. I hated my linguistics class in college. My writing was called "too fluffy" by a professor in one of my masters classes.  Yet, somehow, for as long as I can remember, I've always written. Writing has actually been a HUGE part of my life. I love it. I fall in love with it in different ways as time goes on. Because this time of year is full of love and thinking about our loved ones, I thought I would write a love note of some kind to writing. These are the loves of ...

I have never considered myself to be "outdoorsy."  I love the beauty  of nature: mountains, lakes, the ocean, a tree lit afire with color in the fall, the smell of spring, all the noises of wildlife in the summer. I love to be in the presence  of nature- seeing God's glory with my eyes and taking an obsessive amount of pictures of it. There is nothing that brings me more calm and zen than being by the water. I have always liked to just stand and see nature, but I didn't really need to hang out in it for long periods of time. I didn't need to touch it or interact with it. I just wanted to be near it. Am I making any sense?  All that has held up for my entire life- liking to be near nature, but not really wanting to be all up in it. Until 2020 happened. 2020 has made me an outdoors(wo)man!  Needing to Escape When you're in the hustle and bustle of your life: taking people back and forth to practices, going to school and work, stretching yourself thin from a v...

Happy 2021! A new year is here. I honestly can't believe it. I took such a beating from 2020 that I am still recovering. It was truly a year for things we did not expect, things none of us could plan for. For that reason, I am treading lightly into this year and I would imagine a lot of you are too.  #OneWord For the last several years, instead of making a new year's resolution, I've focused on one word. Last year, my #oneword was TRY. I had made this awesome list of things I would TRY to do each month. I spent January, February, and March doing just that. In January I tried being a vegetarian. February I wrote a card each day to friends and family expressing my love and gratitude. In March, I tried never to go over my allotted Weight Watchers points; I tried to use none of my weeklies. Each of these things I TRIED taught me lessons, gave me pause and reflection. I had many more written down and ready to roll out as the year continued. But, after March, the only thing I cou...