"When you love a functional alcoholic" William f Kraft

"Stop enabling, detach with live, and continue to keep appropriate boundaries"

Make new friends but keep the old

     I am reminded of a time 15 years ago, when I lay crying in my bed feeling like I just did not have gilfriends.  I remember praying out to my God, why won't you bring me friends into my life, real golden girl friends...

     Sometimes we do not see the seeds that have been sown until the harvest is cut.  This is how a I feel about my life and my friendships.  I feel amazingly honored and blessed for all the friendships that have crossed my path in my adult years. They have all been because of the time they needed to be and just the right people were put there.  There are too many to count, to mention, they are like an ever flowing fountain refreshing my soul.  

    It's funny to me when sometimes someone remembers something I the past and fears that it might have disrupted our friendship. No guess one of the blessings to my memory is I forget all the bad and only remember the good, call it grace, call it whatever. 

    If I left this life now, I would miss my family because ya know they are family.  But I would miss my friends because I would not be the person I am today if it had not been for them.  Thank you to each and every one of you- you are the rainbows in my heart. 

To all the men in the world

"I wish the men in our lives understood all of this. I wish there was a way they could feel the changes we are going through in our hearts and heads, the changes we can’t verbalize. Sometimes I want to shake them and say, “Just hug us more, make dinner once in awhile, and love us. Just love us. Ask us questions, be interested in us, and love us.”

Read this from an article tonight and I just loved it because it's so true!!

Jack Jack 11

Growing so fast- almost a year- love this guy more then words ❤️

Full House

     It's a full house tonight, kids on pillows on floor, air mattresses and bunk beds filled.   My nieces and nephew are visiting and staying for a couple nights.  In the past, times like these would have me stressed out while I would anxiously await the clock to tick on by for it to be over.  This time though I am enjoying these moments before they grow up, a rare time of everyone here.  

If I can say what my biggest lesson has been in the last year, it would be that we need to SAVOR every minute of our lives: the good, the bad, the stressed, the boring.  It can all change at any moment and we are blessed.  We can breathe, walk and talk.  We have everything we need in that.  

Now if only I could fall back asleep 😂😂😂😂

Antique door

     I bought an old door. I wasn't expecting much, just that I had been looking for an old farmhouse door and a stack of them were being sold cheap. The interesting thing about this door, is I did not pick it.... It picked me.  

     There were a few stars that aligned that I knew this was destiny.  I was the first to respond on the post so I got first dibs and in doing so things have started happening in my creative spaces of my brain.  This door has in a sense "opened" the door of my soul, to ideas both creative and business ventures.  

    I do not know where this "door" is leading me but I am excited to enter it and step into the new chapter, the chapter of trust, of myself, of eternity. 

My mini

Morning devotions while playing with this little man, he makes me so happy :) (except when he doesn't sleep at night😂😂)

Quiet of the morning

     6 AM the little peeps from the tiny monster arise in the other room.  We are battling a month of being off sleeping schedules and somehow my little 8 month old thinks the day should start that early (after being up twice through the night!).

    I sleepily walk back to bed after settling him back into slumber.  Upon hitting the sheets, body feeling as if it could fall passionately back into the dreams of the night, my mind had other intentions as if it was intravenously fed coffee somehow.  

    A few blinks, stretches and yawns my body follows my mind and I scrape myself out of bed and clamber downstairs to make some of the lucious drip drip Maxwell House.  In these wee moments of the morning even though I'd rather be sleeping, there is a wonderful sense of calm and quiet.  I drink this quiet in more heavily then my coffee.  

    This is my gift this morning, I will savor these few precious moments that end almost abruptly as this blog.....

In the meantime

Awake at 3am, oh how I love insomnia. I heard Jack crying and then my second wind kicked in!!

I am scrolling through my Instagram and I see pictures from before I was pregnant and I am two sizes and 20 pounds lighter.  I find it frustrating because in my mind I thought I would be back to that by now.  I have been working out for the past 3 months and there is progress but not so much that the naked eye can see or that my clothes can tell. 

    I remember the process after I was pregnant with Alan, it took me 3 years to shrink- 3 years!!! Here I am 7 months postpartum which is not a lot of time when you think about it.  They say it takes a year to get your body back but I just find it soooo frustrating!! I have a whole closet of clothes that do not fit in fact I had to go buy some summer clothes for vacation the other day.

    I know it's petty, my body did an amazing thing.  It's healthy and strong and it will get there.  But in the meantime it's pretty damn frustrating being on the waiting end.

Gift

Words are a gift to us 

Perfection in the stillness of winter

Oh weary soul 

Refreshed by sights

Willing for the eye to see.

By grace you save 

Sweet winters night

Thank you for this land of free.

- Colleen Rusnak 2/7/15

The greatest gift

    We are at the super fun amazing baby age.  They sleep through the night, they interact yet they just stay where you place them :)

    This morning my stomach was feeling alittle off so I laid Jack down to nap in my bed while I watch some tv.  These cuddling moments will fly by and I'll soon be walking him into his college dorm.  

     I'm so grateful for these times right now, so thankful that I got to do this all again and really savor each day, it's been the greatest gift I have ever received.

What I DO have:

It's so easy to focus on what we don't have that I would like to spend some time focusing on what I do.  I will continue to edit and add on to this.

Two beautiful boys

Caring hardworking husband

House

Cars that drive

Creativity

Knack for decorating

Faith

Blankets

Hot shower

Amazing parents

Siblings

This is why I never get anything done 😘

A life of luxury

     I'm halfway through Michelle Knights book about her kidnapping in Cleveland. My eyes glued to every word, my soul aching for her souls journey, my fingers gripping the pages tight with anxiety.  My stomach wretching with the description of the rapings she endured.

     The question we have asked from the very beginning of finding this out, is how can someone do these things to another person.  How can you be so mentally unstable that nothing in your heart stops you.  How many other "monsters" are out there doing the same thing. 

     As I was reading, a sickening feeling came over me with the realization that I was living in Cleveland when this was happening.  I was reading apartment ads and perusing neighborhoods for a place to live that was probably only 10-20 minutes away from where these girls were locked up.  Talk about hitting close to home....

    I guess as humans we all ask, what if? What could I have done? What could I have driven by and seen? It makes you just really look at life in black and white.  I've lived a life of luxury, I've been provided safety, shelter, love, family.  Something that many have not been able to ever experience.  To this all I can say to my Lord is thank you. No one of us is more or less important then another.  But Thank you God.