The late twenties early thirties panic:

June 15, 2022Leave a comment

My twenty-eighth birthday was this month. And somehow where twenty-seven felt natural, twenty-eight feels so much older. twenty-eight is almost thirty, twenty-eight is my twenties coming to a close. It’s crazy what one year will do to your perception of age. I don’t know if I’ll have that deep emotional response to turning thirty, only time will tell, but as for twenty-eight, I feel a little behind, I’m not sure why, I’ve reached all the points on my self imposed timeline, but somehow I feel like I should be doing more.

I’ve talked about how our culture extends adolescence into our twenties, and how it’s a relatively new phenomenon, and I’ve talked about how I’ve tried to avoid it, but somehow I’m reaching my late twenties wondering if I should be more at this age. I don’t know why, I’m a wife, mother, and homeowner with a full time job. I’ve reached my milestones. I’m very happy with my life. I’ve made good choices.

This lingering feeling isn’t abnormal, I’ve heard it from my friends who are also nearing thirty. How we expect people to go from their free and wild twenties to their mature and developed thirties almost overnight I’ll never know. It’s a deep flaw in the way we view certain ages as mature and others as not.

Continue reading →

Identity in Motherhood:

June 1, 2022Leave a comment

I often see mothers talk about losing themselves in motherhood. They say that motherhood has become their entire identity and they no longer have a self outside of it. It’s a big thing, and easy to understand seeing how motherhood is so consuming. I mean that in a good way, but it can have it’s moments were overwhelming doesn’t begin to cover it. Our children are the best things that have happened to us, we cherish them, adore them, but they are a lot of work.

A big thing is finding time for oneself, which depending on your support system may or may not be possible, a lot of mothers find themselves dropping hobbies like crazy simply because they don’t have the time. They feel like they’ve lost a part of themselves. I can understand this, I haven’t written on a novel in eight months (that’s how old my son is). I think a key thing to remember is that those things are still a part of us even if we are not active in our creating or playing or doing. Just because we don’t have the time doesn’t mean we don’t have the love or the passion.

Of course the goal is to find time, but sometimes that it easier said than done. Trying to fit hobbies into calm moments can be hard when you also need to do eight loads of laundry, vacuum the house, and file taxes… oh they woke up early? Well you had 15 minutes.

Creating a support system or paying for a sitter is the best way to find time for yourself but mom’s have found other solutions like waking up earlier than their children or instead of tuning into the TV after they go to sleep working on the things that used to make you you.

I say used to, not because they still don’t but because we’re more now. We’re mothers an it’s okay if it takes over. When our children hit middle school we’ll be wondering why they don’t need us as much. If a few of my hobbies get reanimated then, that’s okay. I’m going to do everything I can to fit my important ones into my life now and worry about the fringe ones later.

Misery loves company, but so does Joy. Cultivate those relationships.

May 20, 2022Leave a comment

The old saying is true, misery loves company, people who are miserable tend to complain and pull people down with them. They don’t want to be alone in their darkness or unhappiness and they can never understand why you aren’t as upset, outraged, or as troubled by something as they are.

We pull others down when we’re sad often without realizing it, most of the time it isn’t malicious. That’s not to say it never is, some low souls live like that on a daily bases and will suck the life out of us, but for most of us doing it, we’re simply looking to commiserate with someone.

The saying is often used, but what isn’t talk about enough is that joy and happiness also love company, and that joyous people tend to life others up.

Continue reading →

Do something daily to make you hate yourself less.

March 14, 2022Leave a comment

The title is my main point, do something daily to make you hate yourself less, it’s pretty straight forward, but I’ve got more to say about it.

I’ve been going through a weird time. I think maybe all of us have. Prices are rising. War is threatened. Everything on the news seems to be labeled unprecedented. It’s a mess and things are messy. Even if you have a bundle of joy that keeps your spirits up its hard not to feel a little down.

I don’t hate myself, but I certainly hate things about me, and those bad habits have all proven to be hard to rid myself of. I have tried dozens of tactics to get rid of them and I’ve shed a few, but the rest hold strong. I haven’t been able to get through to myself on all fronts, but lately I’ve been doing better by simply by telling myself to do something daily that makes me hate myself less. It feels like a childish tactic, but it’s working. Perhaps because it only asks for one thing at a time, perhaps because I’m generally a happy and positive person who really does want to get rid of the ill will I have towards myself.

Regardless of why, this little moto has taken root in my mind and I am glad. Whenever I’m about to misstep it echoes in my mind. It’s also pushed me towards good habits and self-care that I would have otherwise neglected.

Maybe it can help you as well.

Go home and love your family.

January 17, 2022Leave a comment

“If you want to change the world, go home and love your family.”
–Mother Teresa

This quote has always been one of my favorites, because there is a deep truth to it. I’ve spoken before about how you should try to change the world on a smaller scale rather than a larger one and talked about how the small acts of kindness and selflessness are more earth shattering than people know. It’s all true and I stand behind it. Small acts of love change peoples lives. You don’t know what simply changing one life does. It starts a ripple effect that moves on through the world.

Continue reading →

Creating goals for 2022 and reflecting on those from 2021:

December 28, 2021Leave a comment

A few posts ago I talked about starting my resolutions early, which I did, I’m just posting them now. It gave me a month to get them written out and it also allowed me to keep my format the same.

But wow, can you believe its already basically 2022? It sounds like such a futuristic year, not the present!

But before I get ahead of myself lets look back at 2021 and the goals I set for myself:

Read more than seventy books: Done, done, done. I actually surpassed this by far and made it into the triple digits this year. I’m proud of that. Audiobooks really boost your numbers!
Spend more time outside: I did great… for the most part. During my third trimester I hardly went outside. It was too hot and I was far to pregnant to find it enjoyable, but other than those three months I’ve done a really good job getting my time in.
Eat more balanced: lol, okay, I was pregnant and I had some unaddressed disordered eating to address as I talked about in my last post. I failed at this one, but this last month I’ve been starting to turn it around and since it was a 2021 goal I guess you could say I ended on a good note.
Be a more consistent blogger: For the most part I’ve done a lot better with this! As a hobby blogger I’d say I’m decently consistent.
Spend more time writing on my novels: Started strong, ended poorly. There’s not a lot more to say about this one.
Be better at reaching out to friends: I’ve done good at this one, especially during my pregnancy, now to keep it up with a baby!

Now for 2022, the goals I’ve soft started this past month:

Fix my disordered eating habits: I’m making a whole blog post about this, but I wat to address my relationship with food.
Read 100 books: I kept shooting low, both for 2020 and 2021. I thought 100 wasn’t realistic, but seeing how I broke 100 two years in a row, I think I can do it a third time!
Take more pictures: I take a ton of pictures on my cell phone, but I want to break out my big camera more and play with my photography, especially now that I have a little one capture!
Finish writing my current novel: Pretty self explanatory. It’s about one third done and I’d love to finish it!
Move more: I’m not going to sign up for a gym. I am going to try to be more active though! Rock climbing, skiing, horseback, bouncing the baby, walking the dogs. I just want to move more.

I’m going to try to keep it pretty simple this year because I know a lot of my focus will be on Oliver and my family!

On disordered eating:

December 15, 2021Leave a comment

I don’t have an eating disorder, my bad eating habits haven’t ever reached that level, but I have balanced dangerously on that line.

In our current culture it’s almost normal to have disordered eating habits. Our diet culture and super processed food has made it a hard thing to avoid, especially as a young woman. Hell, when I was on Tumblr in high school there were thousand of thinspo accounts, now they just mask themselves on instagram as health accounts that focus far to much on the goal body shape than the health.

Our dieting world has shifted so much that we coined a new eating disorder based on super restrictive diets that are in the fad now. If I hear one more world about keto or the whole 30 I might scream.

Continue reading →

Start your resolutions now:

December 2, 2021Leave a comment

Hello December, its nice to see you again!

In the middle of all the holiday cheer you might find the idea of starting your resolutions now unsavory. Cutting down sweets during Christmas? Well why not, you don’t have to get rid of them, just practice a little more self control than you would if you were starting next month.

We like to hang on the idea of starting tomorrow or starting Monday. We misbehave more with bad habits when we know we want to start a good one “soon”. We also are more likely to push them off another day or another week, so starting now can really cut these factors off at the knee.

Also starting now means you’ll be a month ahead of were you would be if you started next month. You can have already started that new hobby or cleaning out that house or being kinder to yourself. Put yourself ahead of the curve, beat the rush at the gym, find a therapist before everyone else starts looking.

Another thing about starting early is you can give yourself permission to start slower. You can do a trial run, start slow, give yourself permission to make more mistakes, than really buckle down with the new year. It’ll go better than starting cold!

So make that resolution list and start early!