Guess Who's Back.... ME!!!

      It's been a while I know, and I would apologize only I'm not sorry that I took a good break to focus on my new role as a mom. I could have done what the people in my shoes seem to do and blog the entire journey but to be honest that wouldn't be me. While I like to keep people in the loop with my family and what's going on, I wanted to have an organic experience as a mom. I didn't want to worry about getting enough activities in for the day so I have some epic blog post to write. I wanted to worry about whether we watched elmo or curious george in the morning. (I'm not kidding you gotta feel how the morning is going on that one. Like did I get enough sleep to tolerate Elmo's voice?)
     Anyways, I am back and I am here and I have fun recipes, stories, and uplifting messages that I have been storing up in a journal waiting for when I would feel the time is right for me to return. I think that time is now and I am so thrilled and excited to be back. My daughter will be 10 months old tomorrow and I am just shocked at how fast time really has flown by. Labor was intense I will share more on that in another post, postpartum wasn't as terrible as I was expecting it to be, and breastfeeding was far from what it was cracked up to be.
      My biggest reason for posting is not just to say "I am back" but also to say "I got some things to share." Before you ask or assume- NO I AM NOT PREGNANT! It seems when you have a baby or just get married and you say "I have something to say" the first reaction is pregnancy.
      Since having my daughter and working with her next to me (yep, she went to school with me every day while I taught part time and yes it was a blessing and no I do not hope to do it again this year. Mama needs time to feel like an adult without someone meshed to her hip) I came home from school on the last day and sat. I just sat and thought about how the year had gone, comparing how I as a teacher had failures and short comings and how I was successful, what I want to implement next year, and what I want to remove from the program next year (for the most part what most teachers usually do).
     However, there was one thought that stood out to me "In the year of teaching with a baby I don't believe I have challenged myself mentally, spiritually, or even physically." This stuck out to me. So what do you do? Well, if your me, you jump in full throttle planning how to get back to challenging yourself while also being a dedicated stay at home mother and wife. Just because I am at home doesn't mean my brain needs to only have interaction with Elmo on the tv or a babbling adorable baby. So I sat down and prioritized where and how the rankings of those three things rated to me and I came up with a plan to counteract where I felt I had shortcomings. This was not easy and I certainly am not perfect or have "Fixed" everything yet.
    You can expect these next few posts for me to talk about how I am challenging myself in each of those three aspects of life, How I am balancing a one income home with a very crazy spunky infant, and where did my little Darby fit in the mix of all of this. I will end this lengthy post with the way I prioritized it. I won't give my solutions though because to be honest this post would turn into a book trying to cover it all. So check back and I look forward to sharing as I go.

1. Spiritual Life
2. Mental health/strength
3. Physical health/strength 

Holiday Blindness

So the holidays are here, that time of year that people look forward to because it's the time of year when families old and young, far and close draw near to one another. Maybe not physically but they feel that closeness and that bond. Families gather in hopes of reminiscing on past memories and humorous stories, and there's always a somber loving warmth to that holiday together. Most generally we see people caring for strangers and being there for loved ones when any other time of the year they'd be forgotten. This year is no different in some instances.

However this year in some instances have changed....

I don't know how to write about this, I don't even know where to begin in all honesty. There's something to be said to be in your 20's feeling the world at your fingertips, feeling like you can go anywhere and do anything and there is nothing that can stop you, your young and your invincible. Then it happens... Life happens.... your flying high in the clouds and then a brick get's tied to your foot and pulls you down low in the valley. The brick you ask? Cancer. Not my cancer, not my husband having cancer, but a very close and important relative, I choose not to share the name or the relation because it's not relevant to what I am trying to express and it's not my story to share. I am the person on the outside looking in the window to this brick, I am the person who while flying high looks at the ground and sees the reality of what's going on all around. There is an amazingly scary thing that happens when a loved one has cancer, while hearing the news and processing it and living so close to it knocks the breath out of you single handedly it also draws a force stronger than a tornado, stronger than a hurricane and it's family.

The past few years in my life Christmas has had many scary moments, last year my grandfather in a nursing home one of my biggest nightmares come true, the year before my amazing sweet little cousin having multiple surgeries and the year before that even more. I can't begin to fathom the great devestation that my family has seen... That I have seen. Yet somehow each Christmas wasn't tainted, each Christmas came out with some loving memories, each Christmas I experienced a free gift but a gift that means the world and that's unconditional love. I know there are many people who don't have family that are close, or who have separated themselves from family in fear, or shame or hurt. I encourage you to look beyond it, see if there's a way of working through it with compassion and love and kindness, and most importantly grace. By now I am sure you have thought of someone close or distant that you care about, by now I am sure you have thought of a hurt relationship that you have dealt with and by now I am sure before I even finish typing this sentence that you have a perfect image of that person. My recommendation to you? Reach out. Pray without ceasing for the natural opportunity for wounds to be healed and relationships to be mended.

My last hope and prayer this holiday season is that you open your eyes to the disasters of this world, you open your eyes to the lost and the hungry and the hurting, to the lonely and to the ones who are full of everything but love. I pray that after New Year's day you don't forget about the homeless who still need jackets and food, and you don't forget about the animals who have no warmth or shelter, and you don't forget about the children living in poverty hoping for a bed of their own or a new pair of socks. I pray that you carry those hurts and burdens and until the day you take your last breath you do all that you can to help others. Christmas while a beautiful and fun season is not about gifts, or food, or parties, it's about a sweet innocent love for the world that caused the amazing miraculous birth of Christ to help heal the broken and lost without judgement. I could go into a Bible lesson about judging others but I won't. Grace is for everyone so extend it this year and beyond that.

This year has been a trying year for many of us and unfortunately next year will probably be trying as well however if we hold fast to the grace and love and support that God has blessed us with whether it be through family, friends, a church congregation then maybe just maybe we can see a little bit more hope next year.

God Bless,
Ashley

Understanding Anxiety

So after a recent (this morning) phone call with my dad I realized that for the first time it was ok to talk about having anxiety. We were simply talking about how the kids were doing and how everything was going up at my house (I live a state away) and then I went into the conversation of having a week for once where my anxiety doesn't overwelm me. That's when it hit me I need to talk about my anxiety because talking about my anxiety allowed me to feel some pressure within me release. So here it is my relieving pressure and being even more honest about the anxiety that I feel and go through.

I never really knew what anxiety was, I never really had anxiety issues growing up that I am aware of, it didn't start till after I got married I was about 3 months into our marriage and I started waking in the middle of the night unable to breathe (but breathing), my chest was tight like someone had put tons of rubber bands around it waiting for me to explode like a watermelon, I'd be sweaty but cold, and couldn't get back to reality for a minute, my head would spin in all sorts of natural disasters that could occur and what would happen to my family, what would happen, to my husband, what would happen to me. That was the first of what I would soon learn to be many. It started happening once a week then it went to having them almost every single night, to the point that when bed time came anxiety would occur over what would happen when I went to bed (I know double whammy).

I being a very religous person through all of it prayed, and prayed unceasing, my husband if woken would pray with me till I fell back asleep. Every morning when he gets up to leave for work at 430 in the morning he prays for me in hopes that I go without any anxiety. I firmly believe that anxiety is a mental illness but if caught in time can be relieved with natural remedies and I know that my God can deliver me from anything. Some would say that having anxiety and what not is just a spiritual attack on my peace which to some extent I would agree however anxiety is also something that many people within my family have had to deal with some with medication others with natural remedies. One thing I think we sometimes get wrong in the mental illness field is that because the illness isn't physical doesn't mean it's automatically spiritual. You wouldn't look at someone with cancer and tell them to forget the doctors and the meds and treatments because its all spiritual you just have to "pray harder" you'd expect them to take the doctors help because after all God created them to.

Then something broke within, my sister moved in and I started to feel a purpose other than myself, I was able to not just solely focus on myself and my husband and somehow having one family member made all the difference it was a grounding seeing her ok, let me feel like my family is ok. I still had anxiety but instead of it being every night and sometimes twice in one night I started to only have anxiety two or three times a week. Then she went home and at first I was still ok but it didn't take long for the anxiety to come back harder and stronger.

Now my sweet nephew is here and my sister is back visiting for a little while and it made the world of difference. So far I have had 1 anxiety attack this week and for me this is good, it only lasted 15 minutes and that is a grand difference to 2 attacks each lasting about an hour before.

So I guess with that being said please be mindful of the people around you, if you notice someone is off, if you see that someone is withdrawn consider the setting they are in, consider what is going on with them, consider that the person you think you know or the person that is a stranger on the street may have something more going on.

As for what I do with my anxiety when I have them:

• First thing I do is point out: 5 Things I see, 4 things I can touch, 3 things I can taste, 2 things I can smell, and 1 thing I can think of that is off topic from what I am having anxiety about
• Once I have gotten some grounding and a break in my mind I pray, and I pray unceasing till I am calm
• Then I go to the bathroom and wash my face with nice cold water to really bring myself back to earth if you will. 
• One piece of scripture I found once after an anxiety attack in my devotions that the Lord really gave me and I have held onto ever since was "Though I fear, I trust in the Lord." and I repeat this over myself whenever I start to feeling a slight amount of anxiety coming on and sometimes it works to stop the anxiety attack to ever come to flourish. 

I hope my honesty helps, and I hope that it is received well.