is this thing on?

Happy New Year! 2020 was the fastest year of my life, but all indicators point to the fact that it really is January 2021 and I’m due for, and feeling somewhat ready for, my annual reflection. I first want to say, for what it’s worth, I wasn’t all that surprised by the pandemic. While I didn’t know it would be brought by a virus, I’ve long predicted our generation was overdue for a truly disruptive event/disaster. I remember reading once that people couldn’t get chocolate during a world war and I realized nothing that extreme and widespread had happened in my lifetime and I figured we weren’t getting off that easy. It turned out to be things like toilet paper and yeast that no one could get, and when everything started going down I was confident this was what I was anticipating and that it would be a long, uncomfortable experience that would define a generation. I’m not trying to toot my own horn, just pointing out that my anxious thoughts were right for once. Speaking of my anxiety, i...

I don’t really have my thoughts collected, but I’m a sucker for tradition and I can’t not  write something at the new year. My focus for 2019 was to be present with Adley and I think I did a pretty good job. I learned that being a full-time working mom is seriously no joke. It’s still way too depressing to think about how few hours I see her during the week, so I’ve made it a point to make those few hours count each day. One of the biggest things I did was have Brian flag me as a high-schooler on our modem and assign "homework hours", which means I am cut off from social media at 5pm every week night. That really helped reduce the amount of distractions and made it easier for me to be more present for those 2-3 hours before Adley went to bed each night. I also got increasingly agitated about chores. I did not want to spend my precious time off work doing chores when I could be spending time with Adley. Brian and I decided that as two gainfully-employed adults we could e...

Long time, no write! If you follow me on social media you know that our lives have drastically taken a turn so I do have a decent excuse for not writing much last year. I promise I will go into more detail about it later but it will likely be a long-winded post and I need to find the time to sit down and get the words out. In the meantime, it appears the last time I wrote it was March...*gasp* it’s worse than I thought... I successfully turned 37 and the sky didn’t fall (go figure). The spring and summer were easy, breezy, and beautiful, aside from all the forest fires. We took it easy with no big trips but we did some camping and hiking and trained for our 5-day backpacking trip in the Cascades with my brother-in-law that was planned for Labor Day weekend. Here are some pics for those who prefer visuals: Savage Lakes Savage Lakes Kayaking Chapman Lake That sun on my arm makes it look really defined. Me likey.  Thomas Lakes- I'm picking up a lake theme... ...

I wasn't really planning on writing anything in light of the new year but I stumbled upon last year's reflection and decided reflection really is a good thing to do every once in a while, and what better excuse than a new year? If you're new here, every year I come up with a theme or mantra to sit with for the upcoming 365 days. In 2017 I picked the Elizabeth Eliot quote "Don't dig up in doubt what you planted in faith". I wrote it on a chalk board and saw it often throughout the year, but if I'm honest I can't say that it resonated as much as other mantras have in years past. I still really like the quote but it didn't sink into my heart like I thought it would.  When we decided to switch adoption agencies it felt like the complete opposite of my mantra. I felt like we did dig up what we planted in faith so we could plant something new in renewed faith. Perhaps that's why my mantra didn't really stick this year. Being a novice gardener, ...

The end of another year. Another moment for reflection. My motto for 2016 was “you’re not in charge” and boy did God hit me over the head with that reminder constantly. I need to pick a more joyful motto next time. If you can’t tell, 2016 was a tough year for me. I battled a lot of illness, physical pain, slow healing, sick animals, and 365 days of complete silence on the adoption front… Not to mention the plethora of the really hard stuff going on in the world beyond my little bubble. All of it really challenged me and I had to consistently fight to keep depression at bay. I was reading my new year  post from January and it was so hopeful and full of a feeling of success. I wrote about how I amazingly felt okay with not being in control. Turns out, it’s easy to be okay when you’re still in the early stage of the expectations you’ve secretly established in your heart. We had just finished the adoption approval process and I was okay with not knowing when it would happen b...