Category: around here

Everyone everywhere is over February, and I get it. I’m done with the weather too, but in all other respects I have had a lovely start to the month. For starters, it was my birthday. The day itself was delightfully normal. A standard work day when everything went right. But over the weekend David and I got a date night – we got steak and finally saw The Last Jedi – and the kids spent the night with his parents. This was our first date in months! The next day we had a family dinner to celebrate several adult birthdays, and I got some lovely and perfect gifts for me, and have been eating very well. Lots of chocolate has been consumed. I am also working through my birthday list which feels good.

It’s almost like I’m pregnant, with the amount of nesting I’ve been doing lately. Maybe it’s just pre-spring fever. Regardless, the house is quite clean and organized, and I’ve been steadily chipping away at small maintenance tasks that have been nagging at me. Next week I have a friend coming to stay for a week, and before then I’m going to totally fix up the guest room, which is where our old baby supplies are currently stored. It’s time to send those on their way.

I’m preoccupied with Lent starting in just a couple of days! My first as an almost-Catholic. The process of conversion is really stepping into high gear. Fasting and ashes on Wednesday, meatless Fridays, I’m giving up sweets (hold me), day of prayer on Saturday, two masses on Sunday for two different Rites, and soon I have to go to confession (hold me again). In addition to that I’ve got a devotional I’d like to follow, plus I started a somewhat ambitious felt needlepoint craft which is supposed to be for Lent. One ornament for each day, going through the life of Jesus as in the gospel of Matthew. I’m trying to remember that the point is the spirit of sacrifice and penance, not the letter of the law. It’s hard to keep all this new stuff in my  mind.

The kids are just being darling and so much fun lately. I took Liam to the doctor last week for a check-up and as we waited, he as usual played with a pair of disposable gloves. We ended up bringing them home and then he asked me to fill one up with water. At first I said no, but then I remembered clearly that when I was young I used to fill up plastic snack bags with water, close them with a rubber band, and call them my pet waters. I’d carry my pet around with me and talk to it. So I filled up the glove for Liam, told him about my pet waters, and he promptly named his “Schniff” and started talking to it. He carried it around with him all day.

I also remember that my dad told me not to bring my pet water inside, but I brought it into the bathroom to leave it overnight. It worried me to think about it outside in the dark without me. He found my pet water and he popped it because I had disobeyed, and I cried. Well, after one day Liam popped Schniff himself. I made him another one, and he popped it too. So apparently he didn’t bond with his pet water in the same way I did.

I’m typing this alone in a hotel room and it is pure bliss. Even though my kids were sobbing when I left and I kind of love how close we’ve become through the past months, there comes a point when this introvert mama needs a break and I’m near giddy with excitement over being here.

For the next two days I will be attending an intensive family program at the rehab center where David is. I decided to get a hotel because it is over an hour away and I didn’t feel like driving that during rush hour, not to mention the fact that it is going to be sleeting overnight. Okay, and the prospect of the hotel room to myself was a pretty big draw as well. I mean, if David gets to stay in what is basically a resort for a month, I can get myself a room for a couple of nights.

So I figured I would catch you up a bit on our life since it has been awhile. David has been back in rehab for a little over two weeks. It took him nearly 14 days to detox and there were some low lows during that time. Our visit on Christmas Eve had me feeling nearly hopeless, but he turned the corner and is doing very well now. The place he’s at is like a cross between a bed & breakfast and a spa. I’m actually quite jealous, but just hoping that it gets him excited about living life sober.

The kids have been doing quite well – Christmas was a nice distraction for them. Meredith goes back to school tomorrow and while I’m looking forward to the routine, I’m dreading the homework battles and the tantrums.

Mostly I’ve been working and parenting and taking care of the house and cooking the meals and trying to take care of myself as well. Soon I will do a post about my 2018 goals, which I am excited about. Right now with David gone my biggest struggle is just exhaustion and the need for babysitting. I’ve had some struggles with depression again, but that has passed for now.

RCIA has been on hiatus but we’ve been going to mass and last week I even took both of the kids. We haven’t been attending our Protestant church lately because our schedule has been overwhelming. Although we will probably go back again, I have noticed that I’m not missing it as much as I thought I would. Mass is starting to become real church for me.

This year I’d really like to do more of the things that bring me joy, and blogging is one of those – as long as there is no pressure attached to it. I’m hoping to have a mixture of post types here, including goals, sharing things I love, my spiritual journey, and life updates with photos and ramblings (like this).

Now I’m going to enjoy the rest of my kid-free night. :)

Life is chugging along quite as usual around here. It has been nice to take a break from the blog, and I have to say I think I’m less anxious now. But also, I’m feeling less creative. Writing frequently was inspiring, and it simultaneously fueled other forms of creativity like crafting. I haven’t been doing much crafting lately. Instead, I’ve been settling into homekeeping, seeing friends, planning for our future, working on my health, and in my downtime I’ve been reading.

I’ve been in a pretty good groove lately with keeping the house neat and clean. However, this year I really wanted to do a whole-house decluttering and I’m not sure that’s going to happen. I don’t know if I have that level of energy yet. Feels like I can only focus on one big project at a time, and right now I’ve been working on my health (exercise routine, eating, morning routine). I would really like to have the master bedroom decorated by the end of the year, but we’ve had some financial setbacks that are making me postpone that as well. Namely: my car was hit by an uninsured driver. It’s fixed now, and we’re building up savings again.

But! I have a really great morning routine going (thanks to the Hello Mornings challenge I joined with some Voxer friends) and when I start the mornings out right I am more likely to exercise and eat better. I also have a health & fitness accountability group on Voxer that is super helpful. So yay for that!

Our church had its last Sunday service on April 10, and since then we have visited two new places. The first Sunday Liam wouldn’t stop crying in the nursery and I was called out to get him. After that I went home and cried from frustration and overwhelm. The second Sunday I kept him with me in the service and it was distracting but we made it through. I don’t think we will be staying at either of those churches but the second one gave me hope for the future.

Houston was flooded, did you hear about that? The whole city was shut down for about a week. Certain roads are going to be closed due to flood waters for a month, probably. I didn’t miss any work though! Traffic is terrible now, but I am very grateful for our neighborhood’s excellent drainage.

The kids are happy and healthy. David has been going fishing a lot. I’ve read some great books. And right now, I’m SO happy it’s Friday.

p.s. – only a couple more days to try Grove Collaborative and get a free Mrs. Meyer’s cleaning kit when you use this link! You’ll love it, I promise!

This feels like the longest week ever, anyone else? For me, combine hormones (ahem) with the constant rain & storms, this sick child who has had a fever for almost two weeks, plus two other stressful & emotional things I can tell you more about soon, and I am just ready for some sunshine, rest, and good news.

I’m waving my white flag where the blog is concerned, and I will be back next week or the week after. In the meantime, find me on Instagram and send some prayers our way! Thanks friends, have a lovely weekend!

Well it’s the new year and I can’t say I’m unhappy about being back to the routine! The holidays were very fun but the kids were also crazy and I feel like they are finally settling down again. We have a ton of birthdays to celebrate in our family this month so I didn’t make any plans or goals, but I feel fairly prepared for them and I have a lot of creative energy which is a good feeling.

As for crafting, I absolutely loved the first month of The Crafter’s Box. I completed the Rya weaving wall hanging within a couple of weeks and I can’t wait for next month’s project. I’m working on my holiday minibook digitally; it’s going to be a simple format like this. It should come together quickly and I’ll share when it’s finished. I ordered Liam the Basil Fox kit because he loved the Juniper Kitty I made for Meredith, and it’s next up.

Meredith and I have also been doing some crafting together lately. She painted this cardboard M which I’m not sure what we’ll do with yet, and she was gifted a Koala Crate subscription for Christmas so we have worked on some projects from that. (Highly recommend, by the way.)

As I was taking down the Christmas decorations I took the opportunity to clean and organize those areas thoroughly. That led to me setting up a little arts & crafts station for the kids, which was so simple and cheap to do but immensely satisfying. Getting all those areas cleaned felt so good that I decided to tackle our guest room which is where I’ve been corralling all the stuff I want to get rid of. I filled my entire van up with stuff and took it to Goodwill, and I plan to have a garage sale on the next nice weekend. Then I’m going to read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up for inspiration and really do the rest of the house, and after that I want to love on our house a bit inspired by Design Mom and Lovable Livable Home.

I’ve had a lot of stuff on my mind about my own health and my family’s, about how to be content and satisfied with what I have, about how to improve my relationships, about how to be my best self while simultaneously being selfless. But it’s all simmering beneath the surface, and maybe when things have clarified I’ll come back to share.

Happy 2016!