is this thing on?

Well, I’m officially in the last week of my 30’s and this time next Monday I'll be 40. It feels like that is worthy of a reflection blog post, but I don’t know that I have anything super insightful to say. We’ll see what happens… I entered my 30’s with dread, but also expecting it to be a noteworthy decade. 2011, in Vegas for my 30th birthday (with a wax Justin Timberlake, obvi) I felt like 30 was so old at the time, but everyone told me it was a great decade for really solidifying who you are, so I decided to make an on-going list to document things. I named the list “Productive 30’s” and I added to it throughout the years. It eventually evolved into two lists: Productivity - tangible things I accomplished, some examples: learned to light the grill by myself, learned to mow the lawn, hiked 100 miles, lost 40lbs without really trying (i.e. lifestyle change, not a diet), did the work to build our family through adoption, etc. Learning for Life - things I learned about myself, some e...

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...

It’s been a while! I have attempted to write on multiple occasions this year, but never really got anywhere coherent. 2020 has thrown us for a loop just like it has everyone else and I haven’t felt like I have anything truly note-worthy to share. We are simultaneously ready for the pandemic to stop ruling every aspect of our lives, while also feeling grateful for some of the things that have resulted (working from home/being with Adley) and the lessons of which it has reminded us (love your neighbor as you love yourself). I decided to write an update on our family now because we’re at a fork in the road and I’m humbly soliciting your prayers. After a lot of prayer and consideration, in October 2019 we submitted our application for a second adoption. We began working through the required paperwork, but that got significantly derailed with the pandemic and us trying to adjust to working from home with a toddler. We finally submitted our last required document exactly a year later, and we...

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...

Before I get started, I’ll address the gorilla in the room: I have not been blogging. Kids really are vacuum cleaners of your life (in the best way)... If only I could also get her to vacuum the house, as I am apparently incapable of completing that task these days. The first big update is that Adley turned 1 at the end of August! I decided not to do a big shindig and just had a few family members attend. We ordered pizza for lunch while Brian crafted a delightful smoked chicken for dinner. I made a little smash cake with blueberry whipped cream for Adley (she did smash it, she did not really eat it) and we enjoyed a leisurely day of celebrating Adley’s presence in our lives. She thoroughly enjoyed all the attention on her day, was smiley and sweet, and enjoyed opening and playing with her new toys. It was a delightful day and one of which I will cherish the memory.  She’s now a solid month into her 2nd year of life and I have to say that things are becomin...

As a holiday, Mother’s Day sounds so simple. No one would be here without a mother, so let’s all take a minute to honor them, right? Except it’s not at all that simple. I wish it didn’t have to be such a sensitive and loaded day for so many and I hate that mothers often feel like they have to down-play the day because of all the brokenness that surrounds other women in the world. Obviously Mother’s Day was a bit of a dreaded holiday for me for many, many years. While I loved having a day to celebrate my own mother, it was a big reminder that I was not one and that I had no control over that status. I know I’m not unique and you’ve likely heard similar words every year around mid-May; all that to say, yesterday was my very first Mother’s Day as a mom. I felt relief, I felt joy, I felt special (thanks to my husband’s herculean efforts), but mostly I felt a great wave of gratitude and love for my daughter. It was one of those really good weekends that had a perfect balance of se...

I wrote the words below last year for National Infertility Awareness Week but then chickened out and never posted it. I just stumbled across it and decided I wanted to publish, even though I'm on the 'other side' and am now a parent. Reading it now makes me so grateful and relieved to know the parts of our story that were unknown to me for so many years. Infertility doesn't go away, but the emptiness has become eclipsed by the joys of parenting and it no longer consumes my emotions and thoughts. Glory be. _______________________________________________________ ( written 4/23/2018) It's National Infertility Awareness Week (NIAW) and I've been reading story after story of other's experiences with infertility and it has made me reflect more on my own story. The stories I'm reading are from women who have found their children via treatments or adoption, and they are sharing their story now that they know how it 'ends'. My story with infertility ...