an airplane in a birdcage

My friend Keely says I’m sassy.
Not directly, but kind of.

(Yes, I have Sprint. You can’t beat unlimited data on 2 iPhones for $170 a month these days, it just isn’t a thing.)

So, I’m sassy.
There’s that.
Maybe I’ll grab hold of that inner sassiness and change out of my yoga pants and into something a little less frump-zilla tomorrow?

Maybe.
After my donut and coffee.
And morning jog to work off the donut.

Are you awake too?

H

I figured this is as good a time as any to update you all on what’s happening with the house we love. I thought I’d start with a Facebook status, but I’d really like the ability to look back here, whether that’s next week or next year, and it’s much simpler to search a category here than it is to rewind on a Facebook timeline. Amen?

We were easily pre-approved for a mortgage at the beginning of 2013 with our current realtor. We had visited a local, smaller bank last year and been pre-approved for a much higher amount but weren’t set on the only loan option they offered which happened to be conventional. So since January, we’ve been scowering the Realtor and Trulia websites. Luckily, they make apps and once we found out, we spent plenty of nights looking at the same houses over and over again on our iPhones praying that we missed something, excited for this process. We are very ready to be homeowners.

We have lived in this “house” since April of 2011. We moved in 2 weeks before Cade’s 1st birthday. I hated it from the moment we toured, but Drew loved the back deck, the big yard that we wouldn’t get in an apartment complex, and he convinced me. I still cried while moving in, this was so not what I wanted. One year later and we were expecting a little girl, and we’ve been really fed up and ready to get out of here since then… oh, and since our landlord dragged a building by a chain in the middle of our yard, just because. That did it too.

And then, one night we were scouring…and we knew we were looking at our home.

2 bedrooms, 1 bath, and we wanted 4 bedrooms 1.5 baths.
1254 square feet, and we wanted 1400.

Original hardwoood floors, 2 beautiful back decks, in a historical, charming neighborhood with 2 potting sheds and the stump of a sycamore tree used as a bar in the back yard. Full basement, and kitchen cabinets that reach 10 feet tall. Every window is hidden behind a set of wooden shutters and a brass mail slot adorns the front door, right below a vintage door bell that rings by turning a key outside.

We were already planning a basement master bedroom renovation in a the nest 3-5 years. I mean, we pictured ourselves living here. We pictured ourselves growing here, changing here, thriving here.

We are so very in love, so we made an offer.

The next morning I woke up in the best mood. I scooped my sleeping babies close to my neck and inhaled all they were. So excited to move forward in life with them, to make them proud. I grabbed my phone, curious as to whether our relators had e-mailed with any news on the offer, and the first e-mail caught my eye, it was from our lender, “Hey there, Please call me this morning. I’m afraid I have some bad news…” Frantically I dialed her number and listened as she explained that we had made a 30 day late payment on our car and it dropped our baby credit score 80 points. When? What?

I called the bank.
I had heard of ‘Goodwill Adjustments’, I mean it was ONE late payment that I didn’t even KNOW about, surely, they would understand. I googled “30 day late payment credit fix” and all sources pointed directly to calling the creditor. I spoke directly to the head of the loan department, and he, Craig, bless his heart, will never ever have a good place in mine ever again. He said, “I would correct it if it was our bank’s fault. It’s not. There’s nothing I can do, I won’t lie.”

I cried, and he just kept explaining that it was my fault.
Duh, dickhead, I know, I know it is, but you are a company based solely on your ability to provide customer service, can’t you help? At all?

So I wrote him a letter and I e-mailed it to him.
No response.

So I called and asked for the President of First Bank of Ohio’s phone number.And when I got hold of his secretary I explained my situation, and faxed him the letter I sent to Asshole Craig the Loan Dude.
That was Friday, and today is Tuesday. I have checked in twice and still haven’t heard anything back.

I still have some hope, especially when I googled his name and found out he’s an Ohio Realtor on top of several other companies he heads up. I mean, a realtor should surely understand this predicament, right?

But regardless, please continue to lift us up in your prayers, we need peace here, because we are very foggy and very tired, and very, very stressed.

Love you all,

H

I’ve been having a pretty hard time waking up in the mornings. It’s an uphill battle internally, my mind wants to sleep, my kids want to wake up, so I force my eyes open with the jaws of life and I hop to it, slapping on a smile and my ‘big girl panties’ and dealing with the bags under my 22 year old eyes, the ones concealer can’t cover, and I can’t get rid of with even the best night of sleep.

Start the coffee, make breakfast, turn on Netflix for Kids while I work for an hour or so in my pajamas and the kids still in their morning diapers, yawning. Quickly, lunch time approaches, and I realize I’ve been working all morning. The small breaks from my screen for ‘mom duty’ seem like days ago when 11:57 flashes at the top right of my screen. I make the kids their plates, and then sink them down on our coffee table, right in the middle of the 3rd episode of “Gerald McBoing Boing”.

I look up from my screen again, and the truth is that it’s almost 3pm. Porter has fallen asleep in my arms as I finish writing out a new campaign idea, as I send another e-mail, as I solve problems. And although my own eyes want to close with hers, and snuggle against her soft skin… Listening to ‘Dinosaur Train’ and watching Cade play with Captain America and Iron Man… I can’t do it. I close my computer and grab my phone to answer my own e-mails, my own texts, my own phone calls, my own problems.

I am always there when they call. When they need something, I get it for them. When they’re hungry, I know, they don’t have to tell me, and I make their food. But I have become so comfortable in an unhealthy routine, so okay with my kids spending an entire afternoon watching cartoons, and I wonder how this could’ve happened as guilt marches smugly back into my face, until I know that I only did this so they could thrive.

I’m only doing this so they understand a childhood with reward and surprises.
Where they get to go to the zoo AND pick out a souvenir on the way out. So that when they start school, I’m not worried about the expenses that come with it, or when they go to dances, Port can get her hair done, and Cade can rent the skyblue tux with the ruffles.

I so want an awesome, stress-free childhood for them, and I’m giving that to them, but first I’m figuring this out. I’m figuring out how to properly manage my time, and remember to do dishes and give baths, grocery shop, laundry… You all know.

I guess I’ve just come to a place of peace. This is not the way I want to start my mornings… with bags under my eyes, and Netflix, and food on the coffee table. But really, I can’t figure out how I can do everything I need to do right now without this. I can’t figure out how I can have evenings with my family if I don’t let them watch another episode of Yo Gabba Gabba while I finish up some editing this morning. I’m solemn in the facts, and the facts are that this is temporary, and I’m doing this for their benefit, and that there are much easier and better times ahead, but I’m still trudging up the mountain. I’ll figure out my next move when the land levels, and my legs have time to rest.

Pray for me.

My sweet, sweet friend Steph called this morning.
In between talks of fevers, and baby tears, and the sound of wagon wheels on her gravel driveway she said something that struck me.

“I just don’t really have room for impulse in my life.”

For those of us who were raised in an environment of impulse, in an environment without a schedule, without consistency, this post may be the most encouraging thing you’ve read all day. It was for me and I wrote it.

The more I learn about myself, and the way I tick, the more I start to understand the “need” for drama in my everyday life. It doesn’t feel right when I’m not facing some sort of conflict. I have nothing to take care of, I have nothing to occupy my thoughts, and I just end up frustrated and bored with myself and with life. As horrible as it sounds, I will create it if it’s not there. Fixating on things in the past until I am angry or upset with my husband, or with my parents, or with my kids.

When Steph talked to me about impulse decisions and about her little man LC’s runny nose, I couldn’t help but to start down the path in my own brain, back-tracking through the past week of arisen conflict. Focusing in on the stress I felt. There were several points this week that I checked my own pulse… making sure that I wasn’t having a heart attack, but each time my heart was beating right on track, surprising me. I wondered to myself if there really was conflict… or was I creating it myself? Knitting it together to make myself comfortable, worrying about problems that didn’t truly exist, or that did at one point long ago, but were now resolved, and not issues at all.

My sister, R was hiking with my momma at the lake on Tuesday evening. It’s a 5 mile loop around a very small lake in a very small town in Ohio. I’d hiked it several times, and been to the lake recently as well. My own little family drove along with a loaf of bread in tow… it would be the first time my babies fed the geese at Hargus Lake, and the millionth time for me. My phone rang and I broke the gaze on the countryside, a beautiful 70 degree day, and the sun starting to fall had me in my own little world of happy. “Momma Bear” flashed on the screen and I unlocked my screen to answer.

“Hello?!”“Hey Han, R just got bit by a snake.”

I’d walked the path. I’d never seen a snake. I’d been to that park hundreds of times for church picnics, and family fishing trips, and bread feeding and I’d never seen a snake, better yet been bitten by one. We began the process of locating our hikers so they could make an ER trip. In this time, I called my mother, I called my dad, and I called my sister Boo. I was frantic. I was driving and Googling ‘Garter Snake Bites’, which I understand is unsafe, but wasn’t thinking about anything but the possible, not-for-sure venom that was no-doubt filling my baby sister’s veins. I could hear her sobbing in the background of my mom’s first call, and before she even spoke, I knew something was wrong. We found them, were able to get them to their car, and off they went to the closest ER, but not before I yelled, “Please keep me updated! Make sure you let me know what’s going on!”

We didn’t feed the geese, instead, we headed home.
“Whew, busy.” I uttered to Drew, and he looked at me then back at the road in front of him, “Always busy,” I finished.

In the few miles between our traveling Honda and our home, I became frustrated with the constant bustling conflist of my life. It’s always in conflict and I always panic. I heard the words plain as day and I mimicked them out-loud as I heard them, “You make it this way.”

Steph’s wisdom today was confirmation for me.
I make my life what it is by becoming consumed in drama. I’m not sure exactly how long I’ve been allowing it to control my everyday, but I know I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t prepared for the worst. I’m always nervous, and often don’t take chances, hardly ever am I put into a situation I cannot control, and I make sure there are exit strategies. It makes me rethink my anxiety and depression and look for clues as to how I’m living my life, and what I can do to be less of an impulse decision maker and first seek to resolve conflict with peace, distinguishing between what is true conflict and what is my own desire for conflict.

I’m starting to really analyze my stress. I’m vowing to only allow my natural ‘fight or flight’ instinct to kick-in when it is truly necessary. Breathing through, thinking through, and praying through events in my life that have otherwise been marked as nervous territory, and conflicts. I’m going to revisit them with an open mind and without immediately starting to freak out and fill myself with strategy and duty and busy.

My energy is a very powerful thing. It makes or breaks my everyday life, and when I choose to weigh myself down with false conflict, real conflict, frustration, and bustle? I’m taking energy away from the important stuff.

It’s okay that I’m bored.

The moment the rope slips from my hands, I know I underestimated the fall.

My hands raw from holding on.
Was I there for too long?
Did I fight for too long?

I-always a fighter, a trooper.
always stronger, more fierce.
Swallowing my emotion, even when the tears burn my throat.
Convincing myself…”everything’s fine”,
it’s me that’s the problem, it’s always me.
Fix myself.
I have to fix this, it’s my fault, it’s all my fault.
It’s always, always been me.

When I woke up this morning, I was broken. Just like yesterday. Just like Thursday. Just like every fucking day before Thursday. Holding it all back behind my plastic scratched frames.

I began writing, here. It prompted me that my login had expired… I kept writing. Until I wrote the words, “I am Weak, but he is Strong.” and I realized my path had changed.
Edit. Select All. Delete.

“I am weak but He is strong.”

In Him, I am weak.
Without Him, I am weak.
In sorrow, I am weak.
In joy, I am weak.
In STRENGTH, I am weak.
Today, I am weak.

It is not about making me strong. It is not about “bucking up”. It is not about swallowing tears, fixing things, being the bigger person, not letting it bother me, setting an example.

Because I am nothing in this world.
I am nothing to this world.
I am a forgotten face in a bustling city of billions.

He is strong.and my face is buried in His shoulder.
His hands are wrapped around my neck.
and He has said to me, everyday for my entire life that I am everything He’s ever wanted.
In my weakness,
my back turned to His tears.
My heart cold to His everlasting love.

He stood with his arms wide open.

Though I am weak.
Though I am weak.
He is strong, and under His arms,
I can carry-on,weak, but holding onto Him.

Underneath, I can feel it,
banging against the inside of my skin and piercing my own ears.
The moment I am calm, it begins to drag me back inside, listening to myself losing the battle,
listening to myself doubt,
listening to myself fall.

I am put together, and I am strong.

But where my heart beats, there are wounds.
and where my mind races, there are wounds.

Independence and strength are no match for the desires of one’s heart,even when the desires of one’s heart lead nowhere but death.
Death of strength.
Death of love.
Death of pulse.
Death of peace.

The opinions of them, of them, of others… become like sand,
rushing out with the tide, rushing in with the tide.
And like the reeds, I remain,
withstanding the coming and going, battered, but still standing.

Battered, but still standing.Battered, but still standing.

be in prayer for my heart, sweet friends.

xo.

I’m writing today to chat about 2 things.

The first, is
I can literally clean pretty much anything with a baby wipe.

iPhone, MacBook, dirty faces before entering fancy places, awesome use a moist tp, hardwood floor juice spills, make-up remover, thrift store toy cleaner, TV wipe-r down-er, sticky fingers, shopping cart cleaner, helps tame Cade’s mane (usually before entering fancy places), momma’s glasses, chalkboard washer, vomit remover off the sheets (in small amounts), and I mean the list goes on, and on, and on.

We go through probably a pack to two packs a week, more when things are dirty around the house, like, non-baby-rear-end items. Or when baby-rear-end-items are super dirty. We go through a crap ton of wipes (pun), like 3 packages, when the non-rear-end-items are filthy AND the actual rear-ends are filthy. We call that Thursday around here.
And let me just tell you, there is a reason I stop responding to texts and such on that day, because like the wipes we go through on that day, that’s how much of my sanity goes in the shitter too. Like, picture my sanity as a package of Meijer Brand Shea Butter Wipes (72 count). Everytime a diaper is dirtied, a juice is spilled, a vomit is let out of Port’s tummy, not only is an actual handful of wipes used, but my “imaginary sanity wipes” go right out with them. The problem being, there is not a replacement pack for Momma’s sanity wipes. There is one pack. and when they’re gone?
THEY IS GONE.

I’m writing about 2 things remember? That was only one, so let me introduce you to the other item, and that is

I now get Wednesday evening and every other Friday night breaks from one or both of my children.

Now, before anyone gets snippy. I want to cover some basics with you.
I was once one of those mom’s that hated when other mom’s said they needed ‘breaks’ more than once, like, every year. Because in all reality, we chose to be parents, now suck it up.

Now I realize that WHAT THE FUCK WAS I THINKING.
That basically mind-exploded in my thoughts last week or so, when I really thought about locking myself in the bathroom all day from exhaustion, and also so I didn’t have to face the super-intimidating mound of dishes in my sink. I’m not kidding. No eye-contact with that S.O.B.
–And then my mom came over, and I cried, and she held me, and she also avoided eye contact with the dish mound, because she knew it would eat her face with no guilt.–

Basically, at that break down moment, she told me that every Wednesday, she wants to pick the kids up at 2:00pm and keep them for the evening.

“So you can do work stuff, or house stuff, or take a nap, or a bath, or Drew.”

(Because my mom is better than your mom, that’s why)

So I said yes. Take them every Wednesday evening.
and then came the guilt.

and then came reality.

And reality is really simple and it goes like this:

I love my kids.
I love them so much it kills me to respond to them in a way that is not my 100% best, because they deserve my 100% best.
The Reality, the bitch, is that I have no patience.
I have none at this current state of being.

(I just took the time to write it all out, write out all I’m doing so that a once a week break is justifiable, justifiable to those judgementals reading this. but you know what, I deleted it. Because, guess what, ladies, your opinion of how I’m running my ship doesn’t matter to me, because you aren’t on it.)

At the end of the day, I want my kids to know that I responded to them with love, and if they aren’t getting that, then I need to fix something. So I’m getting a break. Every Wednesday evening from my momma, and every-other Friday night from my Dad. Cade loves that time with the big kids, and I love that time alone with P.

It  is now truer and clearer to me than ever, though I can wipe the shit off almost anything with a baby wipe (pun, again), judgmental women and mothers are some of the cruelest individuals on the planet, because they are criticizing our ability to parent our own children, and that hurts something fierce.

I am refusing to do that anymore. I am refusing to judge any of you. I am refusing to pretend I know an ultimate right way to do things because I’m not on your ship.

With that said, I want to say something to the momma’s reading this.
I am so proud of the love you have for your babies.
I am so proud that you are doing everything you can to make sure they grow to be happy, healthy, loved individuals.
You deserve the respect of every parent on this planet, because you are working your asses off, and you are doing awesome.

Thank you for loving your kids,
and thank you for not judging me when I wipe my own ass with baby wipes because there is no more tp.

xo, h

I’ve decided on some plans for the weekend.

I hope you’ll all approve.

After what has seemingly felt like an entire continent full of emotional roller coaster rides in the past month (give or take a year) I asked the tallest man in the house what he thought about a drive to Cincinnati for the weekend.
Seriously, it’s only about 1.5 hours away, it’s a very ghetto, very bustling city of fun, and also, IKEA. I need something away, where my phone sits on silent in my purse, and my body soaks in a bathtub 3-4 times a day because, well, that water bill ain’t my problem, and as I mentioned before..

IKEA.

My husband is all for it. All for snuggling under the covers and holding hands in an unfamiliar place. All for putting his trusty iPod on Shuffle for the drive and looking in the rear view at our kids drifting off to sleep.

Sometimes, when life is closing all around you, you just need time to sort your thoughts, rest your eyes, and change a daily pattern. A 1.5 hour trip and a stay at decent hotel are just what the Dr. ordered, and at this exact moment I am Priceline-ing it up.

Hello on Sunday, Cincinnatti.

You read my stuff, right? So, I’m sure you will all agree when I say that I am a bit of an independent.

I like doing things alone.
I don’t like help, I don’t like sharing my success.
But lately, I am feeling a pull on my heart, one that increasingly encourages me to stop trying to do everything, all by myself, alone.

My to-do lists, (or… one of them, because there are literally 50 of them hanging out in like, 7 notebooks and on my iPhone) grow longer with the desires of my heart. I want so, so, so many things for my family, and to get there.. oh, freaking, gosh it is going to take a lot of work. I want a handmade business that is respected and that I love, and that I have true passion for. I want my husband and I to work from home as a team. It is where my whole heart lies. I want to move into a home that we own. I want to rebrand my entire blog and do so with a purpose, a purpose much larger than just to spit out words and hope to God that someone relates.
AND, TO BE FRANK, MY LADIES:

Jesus is working on this heart of mine.
He is putting up very clear detours, and saying,
“Honey, sweet love-bug, my dear… what are you doing?”
He is also saying:
“You are very, very, very adorable, but no.”
& to snowball right on top of that, he says,
“My sweet daughter, please for the 18th time today, I cannot poof a Starbuck’s into your backyard. ”

But without laughter, He is seriously working on me.
There are wounds that he is closing, there are doors that He is opening, and for the first time ever, He has placed me directly in front of myself, and I can honesly tell you that the person staring back is not…is not who I was created to be. She is bitter, angry, lazy, sad, and selfish. So, so, so selfish.

I’ll be writing more on the things I’m working on in my heart and life and mind and house and hair… but for today, I just want you to know:

Being independent is awesome, but sometimes, actually a lot of times, asking for help not only saves you time and energy, but helps your heart, helps the heart of the the one(s) helping you, and keeps you humble.

via

I’m narrowing down my to-do list and seeking help.

What do you think about, while your driving? Stuff like this, like me?

XO-
H