Welcome to My Corner of the World



I hope you find humor, inspiration and something worthwhile on this blog. I plan to be as candid as possible. Life is hard. I know, I've overcome a lot (and still have a way to go).
It doesn't help others if the rough things are glossed over.

I will no doubt fill this blog with stories of my achievements as a mom as well as my personal struggles.

I have an incredible husband whom I call "my sanity." I have two great kids with strong personalities. I struggle with anxiety and depression and I have had a colorful childhood.

I also have an addiction to Gilmore Girls, A&W Cream Soda, and Starbucks peppermint mocha.
I have recently added biking to my list of hobbies and also love to read, knit, and play tennis.

Welcome to my little corner of the world!

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

A Bit of Creativity

  I am naturally a creative person.  In the past I've been so bogged down by emotional junk, that I haven't been able to accomplish much...or I would go through spurts where I was productive, shortly followed by being intimidated by projects.
  I finished a project a few weeks ago, and true to my nature, I put off the finishing touches for a while (not avoiding it this time, just busy).  I'm finally Almost finished (just waiting on The Hubby to hang it).  So in honor of this momentous occasion (I may be exaggerating slightly ;) I thought I'd post pics.
  One reason I'm so pleased with it is because I only had a picture I found on line (I'll post that, too) to go off of.  No how-to instructions.  No tutorial.  Just a photo.  And I'm happy with the outcome.
  IF any of you beautiful readers would like a written tutorial for this (or any other project I post...because I plan to post loads now that I'm so productive!), let me know and I'll do my best to put one together.
  I have another project to work on, and will be excited to share it with you when it's done.  But it may be a bit time consuming....

  This one is the image I found on line.
 

                          This is my version (PS--It's a peacock, in case you had a hard time seeing it... AND it's made out of toilet paper rolls!)


Monday, July 14, 2014

Never a Dull Moment

  So in light of me feeling better, I thought I'd write about something funny instead of the usual "heavy" stuff.
  So today I had 5 kiddos which makes my van Full (all are boys, except A).  But we like to get out and go whenever we can.  There was a park play date I was planning to go to...
  Things didn't quite go according to plan so we ended up arriving at the park 15 minutes before it was "over."  I figured it was a laid-back kind of thing, lots of families were supposed to be there, so my crew would just enjoy the park even after the others left.  We had a picnic lunch and were set to go.
  When we got there, I discovered there was only one other mom who came.  Oops.  They sat with us and chatted, and then had to get on with their day.
  My kids finished their lunches and then begged me to take them on some walking trails.  I had never been to this park before, but some friends were leaving the trails earlier and assured us that their 2 yo made it just fine.  We should just stay to the left and it would just make a nice loop back around.
  I figured, we're in the middle of the city, a 2 yo can make it, what can go wrong?  So we headed out.
  Well the first 20 minutes were enjoyable.  It was shady, there were bridges over a creek.  The kids dipped their hands in the water.  We even saw an owl in a tree.
  The unfortunate thing was that about 3 feet into the hike there were 4 forks.  We went left (the lower left, I think).  We stayed left-ish.  But there were Tons of intersections and such that had at least 3 options.  No maps.  No "easy trail, this way" arrows.  No "snail trail .10 of a mile that away" signs.
  Finally I decided we should turn around.  We took a break.  I encouraged the children to sit, drink their water, and chill.  What did they do?  Played tag.  Then we started walking...and walking...and walking.  The kids were sweaty, tired, and whiny.  We found the only other trail head and a map!  It was THE WORST map EVER.
    I took a picture of it with my phone in case I needed to refer back to it.  According to that, we stay right... So we did.  I even stayed so far right that I led us all up a steep embankment (I promise you, it looked just as worn as the paths we'd been following), only to find it was a dead end.
  So the kids trekked back down.  One was in flip-flops, one was in rain boots, one was in tennis shoes, one was in crocs, and one was in well-worn play shoes.
  We wandered and wandered and wandered.  And wandered.  The kids were whiny.  Their legs were tired.  We were dripping with sweat.
  There had been absolutely no other people on the trail, but I found myself thinking "if only we could find someone to point us in the right direction."  And around the next bend (to the right.  We were staying right!) there were 3 teen-age kids putting hammocks up.  YAY!!!
  I totally interrupted them and admitted my stupidity and begged for directions.
  Turns out we were a stone's throw from our trail head. One of the kids started to give me directions, and then just said "here, I'll just show ya.  I'm headed back that way."
  And naturally the minute we arrived back at the park the kids had tons of energy and ran around like little lunatics (cute little lunatics) asking if we could stay around for a while to play.
  After 40-ish minutes of wandering around in the woods, Miss Alexis went with "no."
 

Thursday, July 10, 2014

Still Alive...

  So some of you might be wondering where I've been.  To be honest, I've been avoiding my blog.  I was intimidated.  Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I really liked the 30 day photo project I did.  There were several reasons, but we'll just leave it at that:  I really liked the project.  Just the thought of trying to come up with something to follow that was intimidating.  So I did what I do best:  I avoided it.
  Thankfully, even though I've been quiet on the blog, I've done a Lot of self examination.
  I've had a couple of great counseling sessions, and I've made a lot of changes in my perspective.  Somewhere in the last 3 months I hit a major turning point, and it's been nice!
  I realized that these past few years I've still been depressed, just not nearly as badly as I was initially.  Now I'm even coming out of that and it's nice.  It feels good to be happy.  It's nice to have a clean house.  It's nice to have happy-ish kids and a happy dog (yes, on bad days I even felt guilted by the dog).
  I am blessed to have a husband who has loved me when I didn't even love myself.  I've always thought he was amazing, but to realize that he saw something in me that I didn't even discover in myself until 10 years after we got married....that's almost unfathomable.
  I feel like I'm finally coming into my own.  I'm becoming happy with the person I am.  I'm a little socially awkward, and that's ok.  I have quirks, but that's what makes me fun!
  In some ways I feel like I have been mature beyond my years, but in other ways (like being comfortable with who I am), I feel like I was Very immature.  I've finally started to grow out of that phase in my life, and I like it.