Happy places

Cuddling on the couch with my boys (2 cats and the Huz).
Relaxing in a clean home.
Having a long deep conversation with Alex.
Seeing friends after long absences and picking up where we left off.
Running on cool summer mornings.
Laying on the beach in Hawaii.
Saturday mornings.
Much needed alone time that doesn't involve homework , studying, or cleaning.


Alright, just had to remind myself of all of my favorite things before my final that is going down in 4 hours. The perfect way to keep myself from getting too stressed out.

Keep on keepin' on

I'm taking a break from the bottomless pit that is my homework and studying to tell you guys that I'm still alive. There is such a hard balance that I am trying to find between life, rest, school, and blogging right now. Advice is more than welcome. There are so many of you out there that I truly look up to because you are so consistant with your posts, and yet you live full busy and crazy lives of your own, and somehow one doesn't seem to be effected by the other.

Ok, I don't look up to you just because you write posts all the time. I look up to you because somehow you continue to go from one day to the next living such busy lives and it doesn't seem to limit your ability to keep giving more. Maybe you are tired, maybe you have bad days, but that doesn't stop you from giving all you've got.

I have never been that person. If I'm overwhelmed I tend to drop everything that is on my plate. My list of priorities completely falls apart and I become completely focused on holding my head above water. I've always wanted to be the person that goes into a challenging situation with my head held high and unfazed by the chaos going on around me. The reality is that I go in with a determination, of which may not always be healthy. I go in expecting to be ripped to shreds and intent on hanging on for dear life.

I may be making this all sound a little flowery, but what I am trying to say is that prior to heading into a challenge I always assume that at some point things are going to get so hard that I am just going to give in and give up. Give up either on the task at hand or all the other priorities in my life. Including sleep. Then when things do get a little challenging, everything falls by the wayside, until I am forced to choose between succeeding in what I set out to do or having a life and being happy.

But I don't think it has to be this way.

I have to believe that there can be a happy medium. Between putting as much effort as I need to be successful into my work, and not having my life fall apart in the mean time. There must be some way to do this, because I see so many other people doing it. Without being utterly desperate for a break and without thinking that they may fail if they aren't constantly operating at the end of their rope.

I don't say any of this to make you think that my life is falling apart. At least not yet. I'm actually loving every bit of where I am at in my life. Things have gotten a bit hard at times...

( Like staying up until 1:30am studying before my midterm on monday morning, for which I had to get up for at 6am. There are countless times I considered skipping out on the rest of my classes after that early morning midterm, but somehow I stuck it out for the rest of my classes that day.)

but the benefits from my hard work are very much worth the effort. What I am saying is that, although things could be a lot worse, I am already giving up on some of my other commitments in order to keep myself sain. Such as this blog. And for that I hope you guys will forgive me. I'm trying to strike a balance.

The problem isn't necessarily the time it takes me to write a post, it is the guilt I feel for spending any amount of time away from either my homework/studying or quality time with my husband. And that is the part that I need to balance. Learning to be ok with taking a little bit of time to myself, without having this awful nagging in the back of my mind of all the things I should be doing.

How do you guys learn to take "me" time, without feeling guilty about all your other responsibilities?

Lately

Life has been crazy lately.

Crazy, but awesome.

As you have probably figured out I started my fall term classes on Monday!

So far I am loving it!

I finished my transfer degree last spring and have moved on to a university that is about 45 minutes away from my house. (An update for those of you that are new around here.)

I was really nervous about commuting to school because for the past 3 years I have had panic attacks while I drive on the freeway.

Not just like I get nervous driving, but I would have a full on panic attack.

Sometimes ending in tears.

There were several times where I tried to drive just from one end of town to another (which isn't very far, maybe 5 miles of actual freeway driving) and I would just freak out and couldn't do it.

I had some unexplainable fear of passing out behind the wheel, or losing control of the car.
If I needed to go somewhere out of town I would have my husband drive.

At the beginning of summer I knew that I couldn't allow this fear to continue.

I knew that it was something that I needed to get control over, because I knew that there was a good possibility that I was going to be commuting to school this year.

All summer I tried.

A few times I drove maybe a good 30 miles, which I could only do while my husband was in the car,  before I started freaking out.

Sometimes I could only drive one exit down before I felt too much anxiety and had to get off.

Two weeks ago I drove down to Corvallis (the city of my school) with my husband in the car, and I freaked out then!

I didn't know what I was going to do when school started.

But I knew I didn't have a choice.

I either get over it and drive on the dang freeway, or I give up on all of my dreams of actually finishing school with a real degree.

I woke up Monday morning.

Got ready.

Ate my breakfast.

And headed out the door.

I was nervous, but oddly confident at the same time.

And miraculously, I drove all the way to school without even a hint of anxiety.

And I've driven every day since, with little to no anxiety.

The weird, and often annoying, thing about anxiety and panic attacks is that it is all in our heads.

All of that "mind over matter" mumbo-jumbo.

Honestly, I don't even know what changed, but somehow it isn't as scary anymore.

I know that I don't want to live my life in fear.

I don't want to give up on something that is important to me, just because some very small detail is standing in my way.

Maybe all I needed was something to force me to get over it.

And realize that I am capable of so much more than I think I am.

Oh, and in other good news,

Friday was supposed to be my last day at my job.

I was looking for something that was going to be a little more flexible with my school schedule, because I didn't want to have to plan my classes around work.

Well, last Monday my work actually offered to keep me on as a 10 hour employee!

So I still have a job!

Yay!

Funny how a few months ago I was completely stressed about how things were going to turn out.

I guess sometimes we just need to let the pieces fall together on their own.

Thanks for reading guys! And for being such a big support system for me! I really don't think my life would be the same without so many of you!

Searching for Peace

(Warning: this post is a little all over the place. I guess that is what you get when you start getting emotional about what you are writing.)

Lately I have been having a hard time. Ok, so maybe "lately" is a little bit of an understatement. It's been going on for awhile. Back in October... of 2010 (yeah it's been that long... and longer), I wrote about some panic attacks that I had been having. You can read my post titled, Today I simply write about life... which talks a little bit about how I had been having panic attacks and I didn't know why. Anyways, so this has sort of been an on going problem. I know, I should have and should still see a counselor, I'm just so terrified of being put on anti-depressants or anti-anxiety pills that it just doesn't feel worth it.

Over time I've really been able to pin point the crux of my fears. Basically I just have this crazy irrational fear of losing control of my own actions, physically mentally and emotionally. Which makes sense if you think about it. Panic attacks usually stem from a feeling of losing of control over yourself or your surroundings. Just for a brief update (because I wasn't really planning on writing about this) I don't have many panic attacks anymore. They used to happen very frequently, but now they are rare, but still frustrating at the random times they do come up. This is a huge reason why I decided to go back to part-time, because I felt the stress building up again, and I needed to take a step back and re-evaluate where I'm at and spend some time refocusing my life. 

Last night while Alex and I were praying, I was reminded of a very important revelation. I basically spend all this time living in fear and judging myself for having anxiety, which really does me no good. And the more I judge myself the more judgmental I become of other people. It is a very ugly cycle.

I've been in this terrible funk for the past few months of being negative and judgmental. This has happened before, I seem to go through this every once in awhile. And to cope with it I try to spend more time focusing on me, which I'm realizing just makes everything worse. Isn't there a verse in the Bible about being too introspective? I'm pretty sure there is, but I don't know where it is.

After this revelation I realized that what I really need to do is to stop focusing on myself. Yes, I have a lot of stress. Yes, I need to relax. No, I do not need to spend my day sitting on the couch thinking of everything that I have done wrong, do wrong, and think wrong to make myself better. I need to stop being so self centered. I need to start being thankful for what I've been given in this life. I need to start trying to see people the way God sees them, regardless of how much they may annoy me. 

When I put other people down (in my head or out loud) all I'm really doing is trying to make myself feel better about myself. But it doesn't work that way. I need to keep my mouth shut when I feel like someone is bugging me, and I need to stop being so darn judgmental of everyone and everything. Above anything else I think that this is what is going to bring me the most peace.

Source

Thanks for reading. I hope I'm not alone in my journey.

Sometimes life.

via This Kind of Love

Sometimes life has a way of sucking the air out of your lungs. 

Sometimes it isn't pleasant, it isn't fun, and it isn't everything you always dreamed it would be. 

Sometimes it takes all that you have to pull yourself from one moment to the next.

Sometimes you look back and realize that somehow you thought things would be easier.

That you wouldn't have the struggles.

Or the heartaches.

That your life would be different than the others.

That you were immune from it all.

Immune from life,

And all the pain that it brings with it.

And after awhile, 

You pick yourself up,

And dust yourself off,

And realize that you can still go on living.

That there is still life out there.

That things could always have been worse.

And then you thank God

For his Grace.

His Hope.

His Love.

His Perseverance.

His Patients.

His Kindness.

And His Forgiveness.

Just a couple things I'm thankful for...

Today I just want to say how thankful I am for my friends, all of them. There are a couple friends in particular that I know, in some shape or form, will always be a part of my life. There have been years where we haven't talked at all, years that we have fought, years that I thought we would never speak again, and then years where I remember that my life would be so different had I never met them. Sometimes we live in different cities, states, and even countries, but somehow our paths have always found a way to meet up.

This is true friendship. Not one that is fake, but one where life pulls you apart and pushes you together and even in the times were you are angry with each other, you couldn't imagine your life without them. 

I just want to say thank you for sticking with me through my personal battles and constant ebbs and flows of life, and helping me grow and become a better person along the way. Both of you mean a lot to me, regardless of what we have been through, and I'm so grateful I met each of you so many years ago.

My first yarn wreath and a flower tutorial.

Over the last few months I have sort of taken a little crafting/blogging hiatus. At some point awhile back I went from working 20hrs to 30hrs a week and then this summer went to full time. Unfortunately this hasn't left me a ton of time to do all the things that I love. Since we've been back from Hawaii something just kind of clicked and I realized that what is important to me is for both my husband and I to be doing the things we enjoy, and not just the things that pay the bills. It just isn't fulfilling to wake up every morning and wish you could spend the day doing something that you actually enjoy. So with that said, in January I will be going back to school and soon after going back to part time. I'm so excited to be taking a step towards the future we want. Also since being back we have kind of gone a little crazy on overdue projects. Ok, let's be honest I have gone a little crazy and he has just given in to my whims.
So to kick off the soon to be Christmas season, here is the yarn wreath I made yesterday:

I know that the yarn thing has been done several times so I'm not going to bother with a tutorial, but here is one by Take Heart if anyone needs to see how it is done. But it was super super easy.

Here is another fabric flower that I made with different fabric which shows you a little better what these guys look like in person.

There are tons and tons of fabric flowers out there and I'm sure someone somewhere has a tutorial for these, but I personally couldn't find one so I will show you how I made mine.

Step 1: Cut a strip of fabric, tapering it so one end is wider than the other. It doesn't have to be much wider, just about a quarter to half an inch.

Step 2: Fold fabric in half (hot dog style) and cut slits in the fabric. This should be self explanatory and you probably don't need me to tell you this, but I made the silly mistake of accidentally cutting all the way through the fabric a couple times and had to start over, so beware of that.

Step 3: Fold in half and do a simple stitch through the solid side of the fabric (aka: the non-loopy side)

Step 4: As you are sewing pull the thread through the fabric so it starts to gather. Continue to the end of the fabric. As you go the fabric will spin into a flower shape.

Step 5: (No photo) The fabric should be all gathered into a flower shape now, you can adjust the layers as you like and then sew through all of the layers of fabric until it feels good and secure. Add buttons or whatever embellishment you like.

 Well hopefully that was helpful! Hope everyone has a great week and a wonderful Thanksgiving!

A Beautiful Mess

Alex and my two year anniversary is coming up this November. I can't believe it has almost been two years already. I also can't believe how drastically our relationship has changed in the last two years, and we still have many many many more to come.



After some recent conversations with good friends (married and single) I have realized that there is such a miscommunication about what marriage is like. We always hear how "hard" it is. I'm not sure there is a more vague description. It is so much more than just hard, at least in my experience. Marriage is a constant struggle to find each other, yourself, and God. It is painful and yet, rewarding. It is a wonderful, fun, peaceful, fulfilling, most difficult thing that you can ever experience. Or at least I believe it can be. It definitely is not perfect every day nor is it constantly full of emotional love. It is more natural and real than that. Love is just a fact. It is always there, but not always felt. And I don't believe this is in any way a bad thing.



On top of all the pressures of being married, there is this horrible stigma of arguing. Since divorce rates are so high, it seems like many couples are just out there trying to beat the odds. And it seems as though fighting has been the blame of divorce, or at least that is how if feels for newlyweds. We are so scared to argue because we think that other people will think we made a mistake, or will not think we are right together or they will say "I knew they should have waited". But don't you think it should be normal for couples to fight? Especially in the first few years of marriage? You are two completely different people with different backgrounds who have usually made many mistakes. We all have our own pasts and our parents mistakes to overcome. We learn so many of our behaviors from our parents and we grow up in completely different houses, towns, sometimes even with different spiritual beliefs. Shouldn't it be ok and accepted to have some arguments? To do things "wrong" every now and then?



Women (at least in the Christian community) have become so consumed with not being the "overbearing controlling woman" that they have tried so hard to fight off all of their anger. As a woman I can say that sometimes I am completely irrational. Sometimes I get really angry about something that is incredibly stupid. In the very beginning of our marriage I had no idea that I could get so worked up over something so small and insignificant. Sometimes, when I got too angry, I would just lock myself up in the bedroom and not talk to Alex for hours. It wasn't because I was mad and he did something wrong and I felt like he should be punished, it was because I had no idea how to communicate to him how I was feeling, what I was thinking and why this small thing was such a huge deal to me. I usually felt like I was crazy. I was so concerned with people knowing that we fought and being a terrible wife, that I would get more insecure and irrational. Very very gradually, with much patients on Alex's part, I learned how to communicate in a healthier way. However, if we just stifle our anger and emotions, we can never get to the good stuff.



I am not trying to say that all arguing is great but I don't believe that fighting alone can ruin a marriage. I do believe that if one person is unwilling and refuses to accept their own faults and doesn't try to see the others point of view, that is how arguing can go bad. But if you aren't free to express anger and frustration in a healthy way, even if it looks a little ugly sometimes, how can you change and grow together? How can you love each other through "the good times and the bad" if you don't allow yourself to express your true emotions?



All of the married couples that I am amazed by, and who have been together for many years, argue. Not only that but they are incredibly honest about it and they don't even think it is a huge deal. These aren't the marriages where the woman says "I just had to learn to bite my tongue because I wanted to be the loving wife, and eventually I learned not to get upset with him." These are the ones that sometimes say "I literally thought I was going to kill him, but eventually we began to understand each other and the small issues became easier to work through."



Many people say that the most important thing in a marriage is communication, and I wholeheartedly believe this. It isn't about being "perfect for each other" "meant to be" or "the one". Those people get divorced too, and find new "ones". It is important for every couple to accept that sometimes things are going to be messy, and your relationship may never look like some other couple, and that is perfectly ok. If we are always trying to prove that we are happy and comparing ourselves to others, we are going to miss out on something so much deeper and more meaningful.

Today I simply write about life...

This afternoon I am sitting around my messy house in my sweats, with many unfinished projects and chores to attend to, and yet I am content. This is life. It isn't about how cute I can make my house look or how many possessions I can afford.
Earlier I found a blog that I really fell in love with. Not because this woman had a beautiful home or because she was an excellent writer, but because she was real. She didn't pretend to have her life in order, actually many of her posts were about how upset she was and how little things in life don't go as planned. Her and her husband took a risk and bought a home, and it actually ended up being a really terrible decision. They have basically lost all of their life savings. It is truly an unfortunate situation, and yet at the same time I find myself so inspired by this woman. Simply because she can be real with herself, and the world, and say that she is broken.
I guess this just really hit home with me because I am tired of everyone (including myself) pretending that life is perfect and wonderful, because it isn't. I'm not trying to be depressing or say that I am not happy with my life. Honestly, I don't want to have a perfect life, where is the fun in that? If something is going wrong in your life it seems as though it must reflect on the character of who you are and not simply that we are just human beings, learning and making mistakes as we go. Why must making a mistake mean something bad about who we are? I don't know about you, but I am far from perfect. My life hardly ever goes "as planned", and even when it does that "plan" isn't always as glamorous as I thought it would be. Sometimes when we stick to our own plan for our life we miss out on so much more that we could be experiencing.
I met this woman the other day that really inspired me to be less concerned about where this life is going and more concerned with what I am going to do with the day ahead of me. She told me a story of how she went to a foreign country (I think it was the Congo but I can't remember) on a missions trip, to teach people about Jesus. Apparently most missionaries do not return form this trip because they are killed for speaking about Jesus. So, naturally, before she left all of her friends and family warned her not to go, saying that she would be killed and never return. Do you know what she said to them? "So what? Let them kill me, I don't care! But before they kill me you better believe I am going to tell them about Jesus." Not only am I inspired by her abandonment for God, but also by her confidence. There is really something that can be said about a person who would willingly give up their life for something or someone else. They are saying "Even if I am not able to accomplish anything else, my life was a success." How many of us can say that? Who can say they are content with the level of success that they have achieved at this very moment, so much so that if they died they would not have a regret? And why must we go half way around the world to feel like this?
I believe whole heartedly that this is the life Jesus is calling us to. Not to become missionaries, but to a life of fearlessness, abandonment, and confidence. It is possible to do that in everyday life. Just being real and being honest about your problems can be an act of fearlessness.
There are always different seasons of our life. Sometimes we can feel incredibly confident, knowing who we are and that we are capable of everything. Other times we can feel unsure of ourselves, and fearing what others think of us.
For a very long time I was the most confident in myself that I had ever been. I knew who I was, what I wanted to be, and how I was going to get there. Then one day my whole life changed. Suddenly the confidence that had become such a huge part of me began slipping away. While Alex and I were working out nearly a year and a half ago, I experienced my first panic attack. Since that time I have experience dozens more, mostly when I am driving, running, or in the grocery store. I have sifted through every negative experience and emotion that I can possibly think of to try to explain why this would be happening to me. I have researched and found vitamin deficiencies, organ malfunctions, and diseases that could be causing this and taken dozens of vitamins and pills ( no anti-depressants/anxiety pills) to bring me back to myself again. All of this just leading to one conclusion, I have no idea why this is happening to me. I really truly deeply love my life, husband, family, and friends. I didn't have a terribly traumatic childhood. These panic attacks have left me feeling paralyzed and as though my life will never be normal again. I can't even drive on the freeway, or any other high speed road. It is truly one of the worst things I have ever experienced. I would take physical pain over this intense fearfulness and loss of control.
Slowly but surely I have decided that I will gain my confidence back. Even if I have to fight for the rest of my life. I will not abandon the virtue of feeling at peace once again. Everyday I have started asking myself, what is the worst thing that could happen? I could either die or be humiliated. So what! If I die then I can be with Jesus, and I don't have to be humiliated if I don't want to be. I will never lay down and just let life happen to me. This life will be what I (and my husband) make it, and that's that!