the well runs deep and dry

I've got so much to say, but my brain is like a colander and it just slides right out before I can catch it.

1. I read an article a few days ago where the author talked about how we have this internalized fat-shaming thing going on. We can look at other people and accept them where we are and think that they are beautiful, but when we look at ourselves, we just can't do that. She said, "If you hate the way your before picture looks, do you think I need to lose weight?" insinuating that if we don't like the way we look, do we think that people who look similar to us need to change as well?
I was so struck by that.

Because I look at all the beautiful people I'm surrounded by, and I am so proud of them and their accomplishments. Sure, I see physical "flaws" (society says), but I applaud them for using their bodies and don't judge them or think they should change their appearance. However, I can pick myself apart in front of a mirror in 2.5 seconds and give you a blanket list of everything on my body that needs to change.

Why? Why can I find other people beautiful and worthy, but not do it for myself? My body is healthy and strong, it makes babies and keeps them alive, it loves people well, it goes on adventures and explores, and generally lets me live a wonderful and beautiful life. So why can't I see all of that when I look in the mirror, instead of the layer of fat riding on top of my stomach, or the cellulite all over my thighs?

I become consumed with a sort of panic--I need to change this now! and it deteriorates into, "How can I change (read: become acceptable) myself as soon as possible?" Counting calories, elimination diets, health supplements, any and everything gets thrown onto the drawing board, because pretty soon it deteriorates into being all about appearance rather than taking care of myself.
Basically, I'm having a hard time right now. I feel like a gigantic, enormous failure, because I reached so many goals and finally felt at peace with myself and my body while also improving my health, but now I'm here, 3 years later, and I just feel stuck. I'm tired of the process, I'm tired of picking myself back up after I fall face-first into a pile of sugar, and I want a quicker fix (but am coming back to the fact that I don't think there is one).

2. This video makes me cry every single time I watch it, because it speaks to so many areas of my heart that just feel bruised and battered right now.

Women's roles in ministry (and all of the discrimination/inequality my eyes are finally seeing)

Pursuing your dreams and calling, in spite of logistics

Making room for my husband's calling, and helping him pursue it

I am wrestling, wrestling, wrestling.
I feel like Jacob, when he spent the night wrestling with God, and got so tired, but he wouldn't stop until God blessed him. I can't leave this alone, even if I am injured in the process, because I just need to know. So I keep sweating, and straining, and yelling at God to let me in, let me see, let me hear, because I want it all.

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On why I am tired of The Church

Oh, I am so weary.
Today I have just had it. The straw that broke the camel's back landed in my bag and I am firmly on the other side of "I'm done".

I am so tired of this Church.

This judgmental, angry, hypocritical, whitewashed church.
The ones who spout love with one breath, and judgment and condemnation with another.

The ones who claim to follow Christ, and yet seem to ignore those great commandments of loving God first and then loving others. (Can we all take a minute and note how we, ourselves, do not even make the top list of people we are supposed to care about?!)

I am so worn out from fighting it, and trying to convince myself that it's not like this, and that The Church is still there and still beautiful, and still in love with Christ. Because right now, when I look around, I see a Church in love with the Law and in love with themselves and this masquerade of Righteousness that they are convinced they are living out. Like the Crusaders, firmly convinced that spreading Christianity means beating other people to death.

I just can. not. take. any. more.

So I'm out.
Do you hear me?

I am OUT, Church.

You can find me in the dens of iniquity, hiding with my LGBTQ family, my fellow addicts, losers, left-wing, liberal, worldly, SINNERS.
Because that is who I am, and this is where I belong. Right back in the place that Jesus plucked me from, so that I can hope and pray that He will use me to help pluck someone else from that place. I cannot hold my head up high anymore and say that I am okay with the attitudes running through the Evangelical Church right now. The judgment disguised as "encouragement", the hypocrisy disguised as care, the moral high ground disguised as leadership. I don't want any part of it.

I love my local church body. I love my fellow Christians who are truly in love with Christ and are genuinely living that out. I love the women that, every day, push me to challenge my old ways and thinking and to make sure they truly line up with Scripture and the life God calls me to live. Those are the people I will cling to and fight the battles of this world with. But I am tired of trying to align myself with others who believe that people are the enemy, and not the evil authorities of the spiritual realm.

I just don't have the energy to hate anymore.

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write what you know

I've been blogging for a long time. A little over ten years actually. In that time, I've gone from being an angsty teen, pouring out her emotions all over the interwebz, to entering a mommy-blogger-wannabe phase in which I really struggled with marketing myself and attempting to monetize my blog and profit off of it, and now finally landing in this strange area where I am so much a mother and so deep in my own mire that I have often wondered if there is any point in trying to keep this thing going.

You may have gathered this by now, but I am struggling with the value and purpose of my own story.

It feels like everyone else, it seems like I have nothing new to contribute to the conversation, and I remain unconvinced that I need to add to the virtual noise that is currently streaming around us.

Unfortunately for me (and maybe you, if you're stuck reading this), I have never, ever, ever, throughout my entire life, been able to turn off the word faucet. I've tried many times, and I've gotten it to dry up to a trickle, but it remains steadfastly flowing and moving, whether I want it to or not. Which always leaves me here, in a quiet room with fingers tapping and a brain trying to translate all the electrical pulses flowing through it into coherent words and sentences, like:

Inadequacy
-This is a supreme emotion, one that tears through my body with free reign, wreaking havoc and chaos wherever it goes. It tells me that I am not enough, have never been enough, and will not ever be enough. It declares, loudly and triumphantly, "You lose, you fail, you fall short, you are worthless for even trying, so just give up already." It attacks at all angles, leaving no area of my life untouched, and no accomplishment unblemished. It has tormented me for as long as I can remember, and even though I feel like I have gotten much stronger at battling it, there are still seasons where it just seems to be lurking around every corner.

Selfishness
-This sneaky bugger whispers that only truly selfish women believe that they should have a purpose outside of motherhood (which, interestingly enough, means that it co-mingles with pride) and for me to take time away from my family, or even feel like I deserve time away, means that I am filled with the utmost of selfish longings and am once again, inadequate in so many areas.

Disappointment
Ah, the sting of an unfulfilled dream and a life left un-lived. Blessed as I am, there are too many moments (selfishness) where I find myself wondering what it is that I'm doing and why. This is often followed by long diatribes in which I moan about how I'm too young to be married and have two children, and mourn the loss of the life I could have had, had I made a different choice: (insert life choice here)

And so there you have it.
The ugly, rambling impulses of my brain that is chronically sleep-deprived, ridiculously overworked, and probably under-nourished. Heaven knows why I'm even putting this out there, but I think it's because I just can't let the toxicity of it all keep building up in my brain and the internet seems as good a place as any to dump your baggage.

Voila, interwebz. The drama continues.

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burn(ing) out

Honestly.

I've tried to write these words down for days and weeks and months, and I get so discouraged because they're the same words that I've been writing, and the same ideas and concepts that other women have been writing, and I just keep talking myself out of it, because who needs to hear the same thing over and over?

Honestly.

I'm in a hard place right now. I'm burned out, I'm emotionally exhausted and mentally spent. I am fighting the comparisons with other women who seem to have found their place and are fulfilled by doing all those things that they say God wants for them to do. I'm embarrassed by my lack of contentment in my life right now and by my desire for a life that has more meaning. 

Honestly.

I'm filling my days up in an effort to feel important, to prove to the world that I have just as much worth and value as everyone else, because look at what I can offer--but really I'm just spinning my wheels and lighting a fire inside of myself that burns so brightly it threatens to reduce me to ash when it's gone. 

Honestly.

There is ugliness hiding here. Ugliness in the shape of jealousy, comparison, discontentment, selfishness, impatience, rage. This heart is a black hole.

Honestly.

I am afraid. I am afraid of who I am right now, I am afraid of what I am on my way to becoming, and I am afraid of what I might miss out on in the future because I didn't work hard enough in the past. I am also exhausted, in a way that is more than just sleep-deprivation. It's an exhaustion of the soul, of the heart--a weary mind crying out, "I give up! I cannot do this anymore, I cannot live up to these expectations, and I'd rather lie here in the dirt than keep trying to play this game of pretend."

Honestly.

I don't know how to write anymore. And that is just one more log on the fire, one more rock to add to my pile. Writing was a gift, a calling, and I feel like I've wasted it. Babies, and housekeeping, and a different life took over and now it's just a whisper of something I used to know. 

The baby is crying, it's getting late, and I know I've got a full schedule tomorrow. And so that's the end of that.

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the sleeping thing.

So there was this time that I had a baby (you may have figured this out by now).

Before I had this baby, I had this general assumption that I would make his nursery so cute that you could post pictures of it to Pinterest and that we'd hang out in there a lot, and he'd sleep through the night by about 6 months or so, and nap fairly regularly and then when we wasn't sleeping in his crib in his nursery, we'd go out and do all sorts of fabulous things that you see moms and their babies doing.
Then I decided, well babies are supposed to wake up a lot in the middle of the night, so maybe we'll get a Moses basket for the first few months and he can sleep next to the bed where Daddy can change him and I'll feed him and then we'll lay him back down and go back to sleep and that might make things a little easier. So we bought a brand new basket with cute matching sheets and teddy bears, and got a little stand so that it would be even with the side of the bed and had everything set up for when I went into labor and brought said baby home.

Then came June 30, 2011. My water broke at 12:30 am, Jameson was born at 7:14 am, and we came home by 10:30 pm. I remember getting home and looking around at about midnight (after skyping with my sisters back in the States) and thinking, "So...what do I do now?" Then my mother suggested that we should probably go to bed, and I thought, "Oh yes, this is when I get to put him in that cute little woombie I bought and lay him in his brand new bed and go to sleep because I am so exhausted from being awake for over 24 hours and GIVING BIRTH."
So we changed him, zipped him up in his swaddle (after having a long and arduous discussion about how many layers he needed. The books all tell you to make sure they're really warm, but not too warm, but not too cold. So, that's clear.) and laid him down in his bed.
And he started to scream.
I looked at my mother and my husband with this dazed glaze over my eyes and said, "Well, that wasn't supposed to happen." So I picked him up and nursed him in bed, and kind of laid him down next to me while I waited for him to fall asleep. Next thing I know, it's 3 in the morning and he's screaming again (I remember it being the loudest thing I'd ever heard, but I'm sure that was because I was so tired and had never actually had a newborn baby lying next to me) and in my delirious state I ripped off his swaddle, thinking that he hated it and hurriedly tried to figure out how to work my nursing bra and get his mouth in the right place at the right time. And that's pretty much how the rest of the night went.
Hubs and I woke up the next morning in a complete and utter stupor, handed the baby to my parents for a few hours and tried to sleep as much as we could.

The next five days were fairly similar, with variations in the form of trying to get Jameson to sleep in his moses basket (the only way we could make that work was if Hubs slept with his arm on the edge of the basket and his pinkie finger in his mouth so that he could suck), trying sleep with the woombie, trying it without, drinking lots of coffee, drinking no coffee (it upset bebe's little system and made him so anxious he'd just cry for hours). It was, essentially, the most exhausted, emotional, exuberant, hellish five days I've ever been through.

Then my parents flew back home to America.

I remember hearing people say that in the beginning, you just have to do whatever it takes to make it work. You sleep however you can get it, whenever you can get it, but no one really explained how to get a baby to do that too. So we tried a bedtime routine (6:30 rolled around and he got a wipe-down, baby massage, and nursed to sleep) which ended with me trying to transfer him into his basket while rocking it and hoping that he'd settle in. Occasionally this worked, for about 45 minutes, at which point I would then go back in, nurse him down again, and start all over. By about midnight each night, we gave up on the basket and would end up just letting him sleep next to us.

When he was six months old, we traveled to America to visit family, and although my parents graciously bought us a toddler tent with an air mattress, the kid would have none of it and ended up in our bed for a consecutive five weeks. I told myself we'd start "sleep training" when we got back and then he'd sleep through the night in his own room and I could stop being so tired that I felt like I was going crazy. So we got back and we tried it. Started out laying him down in his crib after the bedtime routine. He'd sleep for an hour, I'd go in, nurse again, lay him down (and pray I could get him down without him crying. This happened maybe 25% of the time) and have another hour before he woke up. Again, at midnight I'd be so tired that I'd give up and he'd come in to our room.
By now I was getting the guilt trips and hearing that other people's kids were sleeping through the night, and it's so unhealthy for your baby to still be sleeping with you, and you're just letting him take advantage of your emotions because he's willfully acting out and so I broke down one night and bought Ferber.

We tried it for a week and a half and I cried every single night.
Not once did he EVER sleep through, and at the end of the week and a half we found out that he had another ear infection. So we gave up on that for awhile, brought him back in with us, and decided we'd try it again when he got better.
He healed, we decided to go with the Sleep Lady Shuffle. He cried for THREE HOURS STRAIGHT, with me sitting right next to him telling him I loved him, but I couldn't pick him up and singing "Jesus Loves Me" with my heart in my throat. Quit after the second night.

Finally, when Jameson was about nine months old, I reached the point where I literally thought I was going to have to be hospitalized for sleep deprivation and depression. I was so tired that I would forget what I was saying in the middle of my sentence and couldn't think rationally about anything. I'd break down in tears over everything. Nothing was okay, nothing felt right, and I felt like the world's largest failure as a mother--I mean, who can't get her kid to sleep?!

I remember the moment I decided that I was done with everything. My last sane thought was, "I have got to start sleeping, and it doesn't matter how that happens." It didn't matter that everything I thought I knew about co-sleeping was that it was indulgent, dangerous, and letting-my-kid-have-his-own-way. I told Hubs that I was giving up on trying to get Jameson to sleep anywhere other than with us and he said, "Okay". And Jameson's been with us ever since.

And here is why I am telling you this.
I am telling you this, because I wish someone would have told me all of this, waaaaay back at the beginning when I had all of those expectations of pretty cribs and seven straight hours of sleep.
If your kid will not sleep in a crib, you are not a failure.
If you want to cry every time bedtime rolls around because you feel like you have no idea what you're doing, you are not a failure.
If you are terrified of "the sleeping thing" with your second child that you are currently pregnant with, you are not a failure. (Oh good, because that's me).

The Mommy Wars are raging hard, and for some reason, the sleep thing is one of the biggest battles.
When I think about this, logically and rationally however, it boggles my mind.
Why does it matter where anyone else's kid sleeps? Why does it matter if my kid sleeps for seven hours straight a night, or only recently stopped waking up in the middle of the night even though they're almost two? Why does everyone have an opinion on this, when there are fact-based studies showing that co-sleeping can be completely safe (and even, *gasp* desirable) if done correctly?

Why did I spend almost a year feeling bad about myself for letting my kid sleep in my bed, next to his momma, where he felt the safest?

I'm not here to argue either side of this, but this post has been on my heart for a long time. I see so many new parents who are trying desperately to cover up how much they are struggling with all of this and it breaks my heart. You don't have to keep your newborn on a minute-to-minute schedule, you don't have to go out and buy BabyWise, you don't even have to look guiltily down at the floor when someone asks you how your baby is sleeping and you say, "Um, they're okay, you know, they're still a baby!" I just want to run up to those people and let them know that right now, staying sane is the most important thing of all, and if that means letting your kid sleep in your bed, then let your kid sleep in your bed.

And if your kiddo loves their crib, and is happy in there, and sleeps straight through the night, then that makes me so happy for you, momma. But please, remember, there are those of us out there whose babies just don't work the same way as yours, and as much as we loved that crib we bought and that nursery we decorated, we're just trying to do the best that we can.

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work/mom

I never wanted to be a working mom.
The plan was to stay home with  my kids after they were born--after all, I am their momma and I should be the one raising them, right?

For the first year and a half of Jameson's life, I was fortunate enough to be able to do this. England has an awesome maternity allowance scheme that meant I got paid for nine months while hanging out with my babe. Amazing.
When October/November of last year rolled around, I got a part-time holiday job at Lush and loved it--I worked 15-20ish hours a week, walked there, and didn't ever have to work very late. It gave Jameson some time with Papa or Ah-ma and Yeh-yeh and it was fine. I made some friends and got some much-needed independence.

However, once we moved back to America, Hubs and I both knew that the situation was going to have to change. Moving transatlantically is expensive, and we did it twice. It meant that we both had to work, no matter how much I didn't want to.
Now, the incredible upsides to our situation are many: my parents or sisters are able to watch Jameson while Hubs and I are both working, and if I have to leave him, who better than with his own family?
Also, my office is extremely relaxed and very willing to work with me on scheduling. Everyone here loves my little family and they know how important they are to me.
Hubs and I work opposite schedules, and although this can be tough in the marriage department, it's easier in the childcare one. He gets to stay home with Jameson while I'm at work, then my family has him for an hour or so until I get home and take over. So really, J's got at least one parent with him for most of the day.
Finally, my working has taught Jameson some much-needed independence and strengthened the bond between Hubs and himself. He is now perfectly okay with waving goodbye, saying "Love you, momma" and heading out the back door to play. He knows I'm coming back, and he knows he's with people that care.

So. There is a lot of good in this situation.

But. But, but, but.

Every day, my heart hurts to be away from my kiddo and it makes me want to cry a little when I get home and watch him do something I've never seen before, but everyone else has. Or when he talks in his own little gibberish-y language and Hubs automatically knows what he's saying while I'm sitting in the dark.
I never wanted to do this work-away-from-home thing. That's why I wanted to be a writer--so I could be at home with my kids and still contribute. And even though I know this situation is (probably) somewhat temporary, it's still hard. I feel like I'm running a race, and I'm running out of endurance. I'm experiencing that split feeling that so many working moms talk about--like you aren't doing a great job at work or at home because there is just too much going on in both places. Not to mention that trying to take care of myself has fallen to the bottom of the pile, because any time I am at home, I am thinking about how I need to be with my family.

I have no resolutions or answers for any of this, other than to just keep going. I'm still "technically" part-time, even though I work nearly 31 hours a week. (Tack on my commute, and it's probably almost 40.)
I am so fortunate to even be able to work, and to have a job, so please don't think I am unaware of this. I just feel torn in half sometimes, and it's an uncomfortable state that I'm learning to live in.

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this time around.

Being pregnant with baby #2 is a completely different experience than with baby #1.

I was so excited and anxious the first time around, reading everything I could get my hands on in order to try and understand what was happening inside my body, writing little love letters to that bean in my belly and making sure I was taking care of myself as much as I possibly could.

This time around, bebe was a complete and unexpected surprise and (brutal honesty coming up here) I didn't want to be pregnant again. Jameson has reached new heights of toddlerhood and I am exhausted--so when I found out I was going to have to do all of this over again, while continuing to manage the screaming caveman that runs around our place, I kind of wanted to cry. My nausea has been off the charts this time, lasting all day and making it hard to eat ANYTHING, let alone a healthy paleo diet that consists of lots of eggs and vegetables, two things I can't even look at right now. I am even more tired than I used to be (how is that possible?!) and I am getting fat.

It's been hard, friends. It's been really, really hard. I have struggled with wanting this pregnancy and WANTING to want this pregnancy. I have close friends who would give their left foot to be pregnant right now and I start to wonder why God would bless me with this when I was so not ready or even wanting it yet. I also think that, because I've been struggling with all of this, it's made it even harder to soldier on--because soldiering on wasn't something I had planned on. When we got pregnant with Jameson, I was ready and willing to be hunched over a toilet all day and able to sleep whenever I needed it. I don't really have that luxury this time around--I've got an office job that requires me to be at my desk, not sleeping underneath it or camping out in the bathroom. I've already got an outside kid that needs his mom as soon as she gets home and a husband whose face I barely remember because we only see each other when we lay down to go to sleep at night.

I've been trying to find ways to connect with this bebe, trying to get myself into a place where I was handling all of this a little better and really trying to be excited. I scheduled an ultrasound at nine weeks, hoping that seeing my little baby would help. Instead I found out that I'm two weeks behind and was only about seven weeks along--giving me an extra two weeks of misery before my wanting to throw up on everything goes away (we hope). The light at the end of the tunnel finally came when I went in for my first midwife appointment and she found the heartbeat with the Doppler. It was a moment of clarity--a realization that there is a baby growing inside of me who I will love just as much as Jameson by the time they are born. Another baby that I get to hold and smell and be a momma too, just like I did once before. Another person that came from Hubs and I, and is a tangible example of how I've found someone to love me through anything.

This is starting to make it all worth it. Even though I still hate eggs.

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the end of [round two]

If there is anyone still left reading this, I'm sure you're wondering where the last five days or so of food logs went.
The short answer is that my whole30 turned into a whole25.
You can judge and shake your head and leave it there, if you'd like. However, if you want to moral of the whole thing, feel free to stay awhile.

Friday was Day 25.
We went into London to meet up with a dear friend of Hubs who was one of the groomsmen in our wedding. He had come to London on a business trip and changed his flight to stay an extra day just to hang out with us. So, so cool.
Now, I have my list of "go-to" places when I'm in London, and I am not for one second making excuses for myself when I tell you what I am about to tell you. What I am saying is that I am learning about balance and priorities.
We had Jameson with us for the day, and by the time he'd finished napping in said friend's hotel room, and we got ourselves out into the city, it was already late afternoon. None of us had really had anything much to eat since breakfast and we were walking everywhere and it was COLD.
Jameson was miserable, I was miserable, everyone was miserable.
Plans were to head to the Aquarium and find a place to eat around there--except that none of my "approved" places were really in the vicinity. So, by the time we got to Westminster and bought Aquarium tickets, it was 3:30, Jameson was screaming from frozen fingers and an empty belly and I realized that it would do more harm than good to drag everyone to a tube station just so I could order plain chicken and a salad. Which means that we walked into a pub, and I ordered a hamburger (an effort to find the thing best option) which ended up being one of those frozen-patties-of-something-awful, and I broke a whole30 on craptastic food.

But you know what?

I don't feel bad about it.

I'd spent the last three weeks controlling, controlling, controlling EVERYTHING that went into my mouth--giving myself anxiety about too many carbs, eating too late at night, should I snack on fruit, is my body still burning fat, etc. But when it came time to decide between myself and my family, there wasn't a choice. I had this brainwave of realization that there has to be an element of balance to everything we do. It was more important to get Jameson out of the cold and some sort of food into him than it was to stick to my rigid principles "just because". So I made a conscious choice to eat off-plan, and I was absolutely fine with it.
Was I sad? Yeah, a little, because I don't like not-finishing things.
But did I regret it? Nope. And that was kind of surprising.

If I'm honest, my one big concern was how everyone else was going to take it.
I'd gotten so many people on this Whole30 wagon that I didn't want to "fail" and have them all look at me and say, "Well, if she does it, we might as well do it too."
But part of this balance is realizing that I am not responsible for anyone else and their experience with this. It is not my job to worry and obsess over other people and their diet. Should I answer questions and be supportive and encouraging?
Yes. Absolutely.
Do I need to lie in bed at night, heart-pounding, and adrenaline rushing as I think about how this bad experience they're having is somehow my fault and I need to find a way to fix it?
No. No way.

I feel like it's also important to note that this was my second whole30--I've done this before, whole hog, for 30 days completely. So that also contributed to my "okay-ness" with cutting it short. I already know (because I finished the first one and did the reintroduction) that I don't handle dairy or gluten well, that grains leave me massively bloated, and that I have a sugar dragon bigger than Smaug if I'm not careful. So I wasn't losing out on that part of the experience--learning what is and isn't okay for my body, because I'd had that already.

This was a hard round, you guys. I came into it expecting so much more victory than I felt like I got.
But maybe that was the point.
It's possible to take a good thing and make it a less-good thing by obsessing and worrying over it so much, that it then becomes a monster eating up your life rather than something to complement and enhance your life.
I need balance.
I need to remember that making a less-healthy food choice does not make me a bad person or a failure.
I need to remember that there is no ideal for my body--because it's mine, and I'm the only one that really knows what healthy feels like inside of it.
I need to remember that everything is a choice and I can choose whatever I want--more healthy or less healthy--and be okay with those choices.
I need to be okay with the fact that sometimes I'm going to order a pizza and drink a soda and eat some really good ice cream because my husband had his wisdom teeth out that afternoon and I need to take a break from overthinking everything (read: what I did last night).
I need to be okay with then eating fairly strict Paleo after that and knowing that it's not because I made a less-healthy choice the night before, but because I know that it's going to make me feel better than that pizza did.

So, there's a lot here.
I'm still working through it all and processing.
I'm learning how to live in the tension between too-much and not-enough.
Sadly, I'm pretty sure that it's something I'm going to have to live in for the rest of my life. But the good news is that I've done it, I know I can do it, and I want to do it--more than I want to self-medicate with pie--and that is the important part.

Talk to me.
How was your whole30? If you haven't tried it--will you? If you have--are you done with the "paleo" bandwagon forever?

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day 18 [round two]

Day 18
Meal 1: 2 sausages, 3 eggs, coffee w/creamer

Post-Wo: 1 fried egg

Meal 2: Garbage stir-fry, 1 fried egg, 1 sweet potato, apple

Meal 3: 3 fried chicken legs, brussel sprouts, 3/4 orange, herbal tea

Do you know what is a really craptastic thing to do to someone on a whole30?
Ask them to bake cookies that they have to roll out and stick their thumb in, but can't eat (or even lick their fingers from). Pure, unadulterated torture.

This round two has been hard, guys. Hard in a weird way. I feel like it's getting harder as it goes on, which is pretty much the opposite way it went the first time around. I'm annoyed. I don't get why I have to have such a twisted relationship with food, and even though I know that it's a symptom of a deeper, underlying issue having to do with perfection and thinking I won't ever measure up, it's exhausting to try and fight all the time.

It's strange because I feel like "following the rules" has gotten easier--I'm better at cooking, I know what ingredients to go for, I've got plenty of recipes and go-to meals, I can order for myself when we go out and not eat the rogue cheesecake sitting there--but I cannot get over the desire I have to eat 4 sweet potatoes at 10 p.m. and how much I have to analyze it.

Whatever.

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days 15, 16, & 17 [round two]

Day 15
Meal 1: 1 1/2 sausages, 2 eggs, coffee w/creamer

Snack: Apple and almonds

Meal 2: Leftover Zucchini Stew, 1 sweet potato

Meal 3: 2 bowls beef stew

Today was good. Went to go see Les Mis and I cried. More than once. Would you believe it if I told you that I'd never actually heard what happened in the story until today?
I know. Travesty.

Day 16
Meal 1: 2 sausages, 2 eggs, coffee w/creamer

Meal 2: Leftover beef stew, 1 sausage, 2 eggs, 1 sweet potato

Meal 3: Cottage Pie (Well-Fed), apple

Hubs worked a graveyard tonight, so it was just me, the couch, and Teen Mom.
I'm so classy sometimes.

Also, I finished the second season of 'Dr. Who' and wanted to throw my remote at the tv. WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?!

Day 17
Meal 1: 2 sausages, 2 eggs, coffee w/creamer

Meal 2: Plain rump steak, 1/2 grilled tomato, 1 grilled mushroom, large salad w/balsamic and olive oil, 1/2 avocado

Snack: Apple

Meal 3: 2 chicken legs/thighs, brussel sprouts, 3/4 sweet potato

Went out for lunch with a friend and managed to stay compliant, even with a bowl full of fries/chips sitting in front of me. I was actually really impressed with myself though, because even though I REALLY wanted them, eating them was just not an option.

Can I just talk about how the country is expecting a "major" snowstorm tomorrow with a grand total of 5-10 centimeters of snow forecast to fall? And also how annoying it is that everything will close and I will be left with a cranky Jameson cooped up in our tiny apartment because no one in this country has heard of salt trucks and snow tires?
Sometimes I just want to be like, "It's just FROZEN WATER. It is not going to make your car roll over and kill you because it's blowing across the road."
Oh well. We'll see what happens.

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day 13 [round two]

Day 13
Meal 1: 1 1/2 sausages, 2 eggs, coffee w/creamer

Meal 2: Nando's mixed leaf salad w/plain chicken and olive oil/balsamic

Snack: 1 sweet potato

Meal 3: Leftover Tex-Mex carnitas salad, 1 bowl berries w/coconut milk

Snack: 2 apples w/too much almond butter.

Okay, the snacking and extra food is going overboard. I've got to get this under control.
I think maybe part of it is that I know that people are reading this and going through their first whole30, so I'm afraid that they'll look at these entries and be like, "Well she ate five sweet potatoes at midnight, so why can't I?" and then that makes me panic and eat more.

The issues with this are, obviously, I need to get over myself and let people just DO their whole30 without worrying if I'm influencing them negatively. And I need to get this emotional eating/snacking/cravings under control. I had this issue the first time around--the stress about the timing of my eating, how much I ate, what I ate, etc. (I like strict rules and guidelines, as if the whole30 rules aren't strict enough--I want times, and measured amounts, people! Heck, just give me a menu and tell me what to eat!) I posted about it on the forum and the response that stuck out to me the most was a wonderful person who said something like, "Stressing about this is going to take away a lot of the positive impacts that eating this way is trying to give you. Can you stop worrying about amounts and times, and just eat. good. food. for awhile?"

That felt so freeing, someone giving me permission to just eat and not worry about if I should or shouldn't eat something, whether I was going to have too many carbs from this or that, was this just a craving or was I really hungry (I mean, I felt pretty hungry!) But for some reason, when I decided I'd go for round two, I thought to myself, "Okay, now you have to deal with those emotional ties you have with food. No more 'free eating', this round is about getting your mind under control." Except that seems to have backfired, because I'm now even MORE anal retentive about what I'm putting in my mouth and when and it's causing stress and so I'm eating my stress. Awesome.

I don't know what the answer is yet. I can't say, "Yes, okay I'm going to eat what what I want when I want" because then I literally would be eating like four sweet potatoes a day, especially right before I went to bed. But I also can't keep trying to lock myself into this mental extreme because it's stressing me out and ruining everything I'm trying to accomplish.

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dreams.

Watch out for giant spiders that crawl on you in the middle of the night.

 It's Sunday morning, and ever since I've had a child that wakes up earlier than I would like, I've begun to experience what life can be like on a Sunday morning before "get ready for church" madness starts.
There is time to sit and drink coffee and wander through Facebook, and think about things I don't normally have time to think about.

Like all of the dreams I once had, and the way reality has played out so different (but also aligned right up) than I thought it would.

I wanted to be a missionary in Africa for a good chunk of my life.
I'd go to missions conferences at church and soak up everything the visiting speakers had to say, and I could see myself there, living in a cave and telling people about Jesus. I wanted to live the rough missionary life--the one with no electricity, no modern amenities, no distractions from the reason I was there.
When I went to Panama and stayed in a hut in the middle of the jungle, and slept on a slatted wood floor, being woken up by monkeys and goats running underneath our house on stilts, I knew that I was in a place I could stay forever. I could see my life stretching out in front of me, and I was thrilled. The world wasn't big enough for me, and I wanted to go everywhere and live with everyone and love them.
So I went to Moody as an International Ministries major, telling myself that I wouldn't let anything distract me from my goal of going out and living in discomfort so that others could hear the gospel.

These babies were so sweet.

Obviously, things changed a bit. *wink*

I got married, and had a baby, and although I did move to a foreign country, it is a thoroughly Western foreign country and I'm not exactly living in a cave like I had planned.
In fact, I'm living on the knife edge between "desperation" and "enough", so much so that often my thoughts are consumed with figuring out ways to get just a little more, so that I can be just a little more comfortable.
I am distracted by things and this is the opposite of everything I ever wanted.

I definitely got bit about 2.5 seconds after this photo was taken.

I am an all-or-nothing kind of person.

In order to shape my character, I have to make the change all at once and cut the offending issue out completely. 

No "adjustment period", no "gradual change" because I'll just slip right back into that habit.

I wanted to be a missionary in a third-world country because I knew that if I didn't have the option of having something, I wouldn't want it as much, and I wouldn't be distracted from my whole purpose of being there in the first place. 

No nail salons around? Guess I don't really want a manicure that badly after all.

No electrical outlets? I don't need to blow-dry my hair.

No clothing stores? I don't need clothes that make me look skinny/fashionable/etc.

I shared the hut with this lovely and his parents.

I think a lot of this is coming up since we're getting ready to move back to America, the land of even more excess, and I am worried about who I am going to become. 

I know who I want to be, and I know who I am, and I don't necessarily know how to make the two match up.

Maybe it's copping out, to just ask for all of the temptations to be taken away, and maybe I'd still struggle with jealousy and covetousness just as much, but...but. I'll never know.

And I think I've got the word "failure" rolling around in my head for so many reasons.

Our society always raises up those people who didn't let anything (or anyone) distract them from their purpose in life, and I always wanted that for myself. To be so focused on what I was supposed to do that I didn't let anything get in the way.

So now that I'm here, worrying about cars and houses and furniture and Christmas presents, I just can't help but shake my head in disgust at how very far away I am from where I thought I'd be.

Not only that, but I'm leaving this "foreign" country where I thought we'd be living forever after only two years, and that kind of feels like a failure as well. 

And I know that it's not. I know that we're not crawling back to America with our tails between our legs, but that we're making the decision to move where we feel like we ought to be, but...but. The perfectionist in me is still crying out, "Can't you see anything through? Why do you give up in the middle of everything?"

And sometimes I just don't know how to keep her quiet.

It was so hard to get these two to sit still for the camera.

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distraction.

It's that time of year again, where the sun disappears and the sky is a resolute void of color, and I can usually be found hunched on the couch with a cup of tea in my hand, begging the Lord to give me a slice of sunshine just for a moment.

It is the time of fog that billows in to all of the nooks and crevices of my brain and burrows itself in, making it hard to think or accomplish anything, since I can't seem to keep myself focused long enough to actually follow through. Where I find myself fighting to just get-out-of-the-house and just-cook-dinner and just-go-for-a-run and just-stay-sane.

It is the time of distractions in the form of anything and everything:
--too many tv shows
--too many blogs
--too many chores
--too many moments

And sometimes the problem is that I know I need to sacrifice the little distractions in order to achieve the greater wellness, but it's hard.
(Which is so ridiculous, but it's true.)

I know that keeping up with fifty blogs about how to be a mom and keep your house clean and write well and look good and eat healthily is not actually beneficial, but in reality makes me neurotic.
But I do it anyway, because I don't want to be "left out" and maybe if I can just get my life together, I too, can look like those people and their nice lives.

I know that picking out every single lump and roll and line on my body does not motivate me to work harder and stop eating junk. But what it does do, is make me want to crawl back under the covers with the entire pan of brownies and just give up, because why even try anyway?

I know that comparing and wishing and desiring and hoping are not, actually, going to get me that perfect house/car/wardrobe/life. I know that "looking at everyone's highlight reel" is not reality and comparing it to my "behind the scenes" is a surefire way to make myself miserable, but I still find myself wanting that new purse that she got, or going on a tropical vacation like they did, or buying a new house like his.

And clearly the answer to all of these problems is to simply STOP with the frenzied pace and the million influences all plugged into my life.
But the sad part is that it's hard, because in a sick and slightly twisted way, I like these influences.
I like the few moments of dreaming of myself wearing all of the clothes on my Pinterest board, or imagining what I'll look like after working out five times a week and eating Paleo (never mind where my child will be during these four-hour workouts each day). It's like a rush of adrenaline and endorphins shot straight into the aching, empty part of my brain that can't see the sky outside my window but can see it on the screens all around me.

And I just want to be free.

Love.
Joy.
Peace.
Patience.
Kindness.
Goodness.
Faithfulness.
Gentleness.
Self-control.

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pressure

My tea is going cold, it's 10:30 pm, my baby is starting to wake up, and I have two articles to finish before I can crawl into my bed tonight.

And I just can't seem to wade through the fog invading my brain for a long enough period of time to get a grip and get it all done.

I'm so good at keeping things *almost* together. 

I can stretch a deadline as long as possible, until I am well and truly up against a wall, and it has to get done right then. 

I can rinse the same load of laundry five times, and throw a little more soap in there, and you won't know that it sat in my washer for three days before I hung it up to dry.

I can spot clean my apartment in five minutes, so that it looks like I always keep it nice and tidy, unless you look under the couch or inspect the bookshelves too closely.

"The ability to keep up appearances" should be listed as a skill on my resume. 

I don't really know if that's a good thing or not.

I know it's where I am. 

I know that I'm utterly failing at the standards I put on myself, but I must be meeting others, because no one seems to quite have noticed just what a mess I am. 

Don't worry.

It's the same wall I keep running into over and over again. It's got a name, and a face, and one day, I might be able to just walk past it...but not yet.

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tired.

I didn't really want to sit down here and write this.

But then I thought about how I've let what I want dictate what I do for far too long. And the problem with this is that I always give up what I really want for what I want-right-now.
And in the end, it is just never, ever worth it.
Ever.

I spent a good couple of hours last night working on my "business" (I guess, if that's what you want to call it). It made me tired. Probably because I realized just how much work there is to go through to get to where I want to be.
And then this cues the question, "Where do you want to be?"

And I just don't know the answer, exactly.

I guess I want to be here, but making a living off of here. I guess I wish that I could find people that would give me money to write these sorts of things, and take these kinds of pictures, and I could just keep doing what I'm doing, but making a contribution towards our finances at the same time.

Part of the problem is that all of this requires time, and I just don't have that much of it.
I'm in full-time momma mode, now that Hubs is back to work, and while I love it so much, it is also completely exhausting. And then, when Hubs is not working, I am escaping to the gym for an hour, then making dinner, and then sitting down to write things that I don't really care about, because it's the only form of writing that pays. And don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for the work. I really, really am.

But how do you work towards the dream job when the real job takes up too much time?

I know I've got to start being more regular with this space. That's the only way to make, and keep, readers--by giving you something to read.
So I'm going to do my best. I'm going to try that whole "scheduled post" thing, and I'm going to attempt to devote some of my working time to writing what I want to write.
And then I'm going to hope that someone takes pity on me and gives me a break.

And I'm toying with the idea of an amateur photography business. I know.
It kind of kills me, because I actually really love photography and I really want to be better at it, but I get so discouraged and bogged down when I see that everyone and their mother that owns a DSLR has decided to open up their own business too. I just think, why would anyone choose me?
But then I've got to go back to doing something because I love to do it, and leveling with people.

I can take good pictures.
I also write well.
And at the end of the day, I need to own this talent, and refine it, and then go out and sell it for what it's worth.

So. Anybody out there want to cut this struggling artist a break?

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this thing called marriage.

There have been a lot of posts lately talking about whether or not marriage is hard.

I think this was all spurned by the Driscoll's new book that came out recently, and even though I haven't read said book, I've read the posts around it.

To be honest, I was a little surprised. Most of the posts I've read have all been talking about how this thing called marriage is not hard, and the surprising ease that they found during their first year together. And while I don't discount this at all, I feel like it's not necessarily fair to those of us that did have a hard time.

Because let's be honest here (since that's what I do).

My first year of marriage was probably one of the hardest things I've ever faced.

BUT

 it was also one of the best.

And here's the thing. I got married at the ripe old age of nineteen, halfway through my second year of Bible college. When I got back to campus in the fall after we got married, I was surrounded by couples who had tied the knot that summer as well.
And that whole semester, I spent a good chunk of time worrying that we had made a mistake, because look at everyone else, they're so happy and all they talk about is how happy they are and how great marriage is, and gosh, we sure do have a lot of problems compared to everyone else...

And I just wish I had known that it was okay to wonder if we had made a mistake.
It was okay to feel like I hated this life, and to wish that I could just go back home and not do this anymore.

The problem is that no one warned me that it was going to be this hard, and that my husband and I would get in big fights late at night, and that I would cry and he would get angry, because we are imperfect, sinful people. No one wanted to talk about how marriage is like God holding up a big mirror that shows all of the bad parts of you and says, "Well kid, take a look. This is the truth, and there are parts of it that are pretty ugly." No one wanted to tell me just how selfish I was, and how I was going to have to learn how to say, "I'm sorry" and mean it even when I didn't want to.

So, I'm talking about it.
My first year of marriage was incredibly difficult, but it was also incredibly wonderful. There were moments that could have been pulled out of your favorite romantic movie, and moments that I will cherish for the rest of my life. But it was hard. And that's okay.
Because it's even better now, and I get to realize that and see how far we've come. And this is all okay with me. God has used my marriage like a refining fire, and even though I am far from done, I am proud to say that I have made progress.

And even though I sometimes get jealous of those people that have had a really easy time in their marriage, God is making me see that every relationship is different, and this just happens to be ours. Comparison is the kiss of death, it's the cause of all discontent, and it can be fatal to your marriage.

To my husband, thank you for loving me despite all of the roadblocks and difficulties we've faced. Thank you for forgiving me thousands of times, and showing me what sacrificial love looks like. Thank you for being my best friend, and making me laugh like no one else can.
I respect you so much, and I am so proud to call you my husband, and the father of my son.

To everyone else, I hope you won't judge too harshly.
And if someone else resonates with this, I hope you will realize that it's okay for something to be hard. That doesn't make it wrong, and it doesn't mean that you've made a mistake. It just means that it's going to take some work, but it's going to be worth it.

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that one time

So there was that one time that I was going to do this thing called "NaNoWriMo" and write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.

There was also this time where I was going to lose the last ten pounds that I gained while I was pregnant with Jameson baby.

Not to mention that one time where I was planning on making sure that our house stopped eating most (if not all) processed food, and bought more fruits and vegetables.

Also, that time where I was going to play with my baby every day, and read him lots of books so that he would have a higher IQ to serve him better later in life.

And then, that time where I was going to start being a better wife by not nitpicking at my husband, and just being pleasant and biting my tongue when I thought I was wrong.

Oh yeah, there was also that time where I joined that one manic-lady's website about keeping your house clean and organized, and she sends you a million emails a day so that you get to practice tossing clutter out of your inbox.

And I just remembered, that time where God and I were going to really carve out some quality time together, and I was going to read my Bible daily and start journaling again.

But then, there were all those other times where the sun stopped shining, the baby wouldn't go to sleep, all I could find to eat was cereal, I couldn't come up with a plot line, and I didn't have enough energy to get off the couch, let alone clean my house.

Maybe tomorrow will be better.

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them.

You know how there always seems to be that one person in your life that always manages to get what you want, only a little bit better, or a little bit more?

They're always there, somehow, kind of showing you up in this inadvertent manner that just drives you crazy, and makes you wonder if there's anywhere in the world you'll be able to go and escape from them.

A snippet of information here, a mention there...and suddenly you find yourself rocketed back into the one place you swore you'd never go again.

Jealous? Really?

But the problem is, in the end, it's always up to you to do what you want. So, even though they seem to have achieved that other level that you can never reach, when you step back and look at things, you have to admit to yourself, "If I had really wanted this, I could have tried harder. I could have fought a little bit more, carved out a little more time. I could have chosen this over that and then I'd be in a different place altogether...but is that really what I want?"

I guess I'm finding out that growing up means letting go of dreams and not begrudging other people theirs, even when you question whether it was ever truly their own.

And not only that, but life is about trade-offs. You get this, but you don't get that.

You have an amazing family, and a son that is beyond words.

You don't have a book deal in the works, and a flat stomach paired with a nice tan.

You live in a country that people would die to visit, and you've got international experience.

You don't live near your family, or see the sunshine, or feel comfortable in your own skin.

And I guess, in the end, that's just going to have to be okay.

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there's a drumming noise inside my head

Every time I think I finally have something to say, the words vacate my head faster then I can get them down on paper.

I'm afraid that this could be a permanent road block.
But then I remind myself that I'm only 22, and I still have years and years ahead of me to write and take pictures and live my dreams.
I've just got to get through the melancholy I sometimes feel in the here and now.
I've also got to get over the guilt I feel for feeling that way, because I have a son and a husband, and those two things are more than some people get in a lifetime.

I am happy.
Most of the time.

And besides, there is more to life than being happy.
I know that.

My two guys.

The best things to ever happen to me.

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the cycle.

Sometimes I wish that my biggest struggle in life was the fact that I *willingly* decided to give up buying myself new clothes.

I just don't understand this world.
I just feel like there's got to be more.

And, I think that, sometimes, I'm a little disappointed in people when they act like this is all there is.
I just roll my eyes and try to keep going.

Then there are those sneaky moments where my covetous heart rears its ugly head and I am back on my knees asking the Lord to forgive me for all the items I'd sell my soul for.

And not only am I repenting of jealousy,

but I've also got to throw judgment on the pile,

and I realize once again,

that I am just as broken as everyone else.

Dang it.

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