Seasons

Without Warning

The ebbs and flow of life go through different seasons. The seasons change you in ways you may not have wanted or may not have seen coming. They arrive sometimes without choice, without warning, and we ultimately decide if we survive or thrive through them. 

I think that transitions are hard for anyone. Even if it's a chosen transition, we still find ourselves in the middle of moving parts, trying to figure out how to put them all together. We worry if this part connected to this part will make the best match. Or could this part work better with this part over here. 

Personally, my brain goes into over drive when a change or a transition is looming. One day, I'm rocking through things and making plans, then the next, I'm worried about all of the unknowns. Did I make the right choice? Is this really where He was leading me? Did I listen well enough? 

Those questions (and so many more) are more than normal. They are our brains way of trying to protect us. To guard us. It feels the shift and wants to make sure that our senses are heightened and we are prepared to move forward. 

A few things to remember when you find yourself in seasons or change or unknown that have helped me.

 

The unknowns won't last forever. 

Although it feels like it in the midst, the unknowns are not here to stay my friend. They feel uncomfortable because they are. Our brain tends to like structure, knowing what is to come. But as you slowly work towards stability and understanding, those unknowns fall into place. 

The choice you make on how you move forward is the right one. 

No matter the choice, it's the right one. You may have to adapt and makes changes after the fact, but the choice was put on your heart for a reason. You chose yes or no for a reason. Stand firm in the reason you have arrived in that decision and don't let time, others, or circumstances take that determination away. 

It's not a failure if it doesn't work. It's a lesson. 

You took the chance. At the time, that decision was the best for you. If it doesn't work, let the lessons learned guide you in what is next. Failure is only failure if you don't learn anything from it. If you let it consume you. Learn the lesson, stand up, dust yourself off, and go after whatever is next. 

It could be the beginning of something truly beautiful. 

Among the unknowns, something beautiful is waiting for you. A new found freedom, a rekindled love of something you have missed doing, or simply lessons learned that you needed guidance on. We may not get to decide when our seasons change, but only we get to choose how we respond to them. 

When You Might Lose It All

The news stories about these natural disasters hitting different areas of our world are absolutely devastating. To see the pictures and the videos of the destruction just breaks my heart. Last month when Hurricane Harvey hit, I feel as though my life and views on things were forever altered.

The city that we live in is on the coast of Texas. It’s like one day, Harvey was a small storm brewing and the next thing we know, it has turned into a major hurricane ready for landfall. The schools began to let parents know that it would be canceled and teachers started getting ready to leave town. When I got home after work that Thursday, I packed a small bag for Adi and myself, grabbed all the pictures and disks with pictures that I could and threw them in my car. I thought we would be back in a few days but wanted to be prepared in case something happened to our house. We drove to my sister and mom’s house and waited.

As Harvey hit in a city nearby, there was a sense of relief. Our home would be spared and we could return home to our little life. Unfortunately, the town that we live in has a big river running through it and that river meets up with the ocean. So all the water that had been released from Harvey built up and was going to be coming our way. An emergency meeting was had in our town and they ordered a mandatory evacuation to leave because our whole town was going to be underwater. WHAT? Just a few days before it was just a little rain forecasted. Now, our town was going to be underwater? It was such a roller coaster ride. We’re ok, no we aren’t, yes we’re good, nope not yet.

When M called me to let me know the town was projected to be under 10 feet of water, he started packing. He called me at 3am and started asking what I wanted to save. Ya’ll, I sat there in silence for almost a minute and said “nothing”. There wasn’t one thing that I could think of that I could not live without besides my sweet girl and my husband. 

It put a lot into perspective for me sitting there, 180 miles from my home and everything I own at 3 am in the morning, telling my husband I couldn't think of one "thing" that I needed him to save. I think the idea of our house being complete submerged in water and the life we had built in those walls washing away with the river was sobering. As we sat and talked and tried to think about what we would need to last us for the next few days, maybe weeks, maybe months, I found myself thinking that it was all just stuff. It could be replaced or it might not even need to be replaced. Those things just didn't mean as much to me as I thought they might when I was faced with the idea of losing it all. 

The roller coaster ended about a week later when I was finally able to go home to a house that was spared any water damage, a town that faced very little damage, and a new perspective on the things that I own or the money that I spend on things that I think I need. I think knowing I had my sweet girl and all of the pictures I have ever taken gave me a little piece of mind but when I got back home, there were things that I never even thought of that might have been good to take. If you were in my shoes, what would you have grabbed?

Disappointment

I am that person that will arrive somewhere 30 minutes early in fear of being 2 minutes late. I hate to make people wait and I hate to not be where I need to be on time and ready to roll. So last night, as Michael and I were driving to the hospital to get things rolling so we could meet our baby girl, we received a phone call. One that I wasn't expecting and hadn't thought would come. They were overbooked and we were postponed. All kinds of questions popped into my mind? For later this evening? Tomorrow? Later in the week? What does this mean. The lady kindly apologized and said she would call after she talked to our doctor. 

What?
How does that even happen?
Is this a joke?

I had spent all day yesterday doing laundry, cleaning our house, and just getting everything ready for baby. I didn't go to work so that I could just relax and enjoy our last day at home before we brought a baby into our home later this week. I'm not good at just sitting and doing nothing so I tried to keep myself busy all day long. 

And yet we were left waiting. Waiting for the phone call that finally came and said "welp, we are going to have to postpone until tomorrow at 3pm." I couldn't help but feel disappointed, overwhelmed, emotional. We should be sitting at the hospital, getting ready to meet our sweet girl this afternoon, yet here I am, at home, with nothing left to do but wait until we try again. 

Could it be worse? Absolutely. I am thankful that they called before we got there. I'm thankful that the nurse who called tried to be as positive as she could. I am thankful that the mommies who needed to be there for emergency situations had a room to go to. But I'm also a tad bummed. It's like waking up for Christmas and someone saying "well we've pushed Christmas back a day. You'll have to try again tomorrow". 

I feel like a brat even being disappointed about it. We will still get to meet our girl, it just won't be the exact plan I had planned on. And truly, what's wrong with that? So instead of drowning in the "what if's" and "I wish this would have happened", I'm going to list some pros of being postponed for the day. 

• More than likely she will be born February 1st which is a pretty birthstone. 
• M and I will be able to go eat a nice big lunch before we head to the hospital. 
• His parents will be there for her arrival after a little medical emergency. 
• I get one more night at home in my own bed next to my handsome husband. 
• I will have time to go to target and hobby lobby to finish up her door decorations. 

Okay, I officially feel better about having to wait a little longer to meet our sweet Adilynn. Thank you for letting me vent that out friends. Keep us in your prayers as we journey towards this new chapter in our life. I have no doubt it will be my favorite and most teachable chapter yet. 

Here's To 2017

2017. A part of me can hardly believe that 2016 has already come and gone. 2016 was definitely a year of lessons learned, memories made, and obstacles over come. There were highs and there were lows, as with every other year I'm sure. I learned a lot about myself as a person, wife, professional, and family member and I know there are a lot of improvements needed during this new season we are in. 

2016 brought lessons on humility, respect, honesty, and vulnerability. Lessons I never would have thought of brought me to where I am today and I am so thankful for those trials and what they each taught me. There is always room for improvement and reevaluating certain areas of our life. Although I know this can and probably should happen daily, weekly, or monthly, it's nice to feel like you have a fresh start; a new beginning per say, when the clock strikes midnight and the year is officially over. So with 2017 comes areas that need some addressing. 

Communication 

I have learned a lot about my communication style this past year. When it comes to conflict, I am definitely one to avoid it at all costs and will let things fester until it all comes to a head at the worst possible moment. Thankfully, I am at least aware of this quality and have been taking steps to work on it to avoid the eruption. Along with actually communicating my needs, frustrations, happiness, and moods, I know that I need to work on actually communicating with the people in my life. It's so easy to just think that people are doing well, rather than making a quick phone call, sending a text or email, or even sending a little card to let them know I'm thinking about them. I want to get better in my communication skills and actually communicate. 

Simplify

Sim-pli-fy: V. Make something simpler or easy to do or understand. With our sweet baby girl coming along, I want to ensure that I simplify our life so that it is easy to adjust to a new life with her and focus our attention on being the best parents that we can as she enters this world. There are going to be changes that rock our world and what we thought we knew but my hope is that we can adjust to a simpler lifestyle. 

Thankful

Taking the time to reflect on all of the things in our life that we have to be thankful for is going to be a huge priority for me. I know that this year is going to come with challenges of its own that will push me further and harder than I have ever thought possible, but in those moments, I want to be able to be thankful that I have those worries or troubles. I always find myself wondering around November why I wait until then to realize how much I have to be thankful for. So this year, I'm making it my goal to stop and be thankful more often. Maybe that means I need to start my Thankful Thursday posts back up.... 

Growth

There is always room for growth in so many different areas of our life but I feel as though this growth is going to be represented in so many different ways this year. I am excited to see the growth of our family, the growth within my marriage, the growth of myself as a person, mom, wife, family member, friend, and professional, and the growth of my mindset in the upcoming months. 

Focus

I want family to be my focus. I know what you are thinking... focusing on your family should always have been a priority...but hear me out. I adore my family but I have let other things come between my being able to focus solely on them when they need it or at least give them the attention that they deserve. I know that adding Adilynn to our family will definitely help with this but with that, I want to focus on my marriage also. Trying to keep our baby girl happy and healthy will be it's own feat but I want to continue to focus on being happy with myself and within my marriage. 

I hope that you each have a great start to your 2017. Do you have any resolutions or words that you feel like will represent your take on 2017 or are you just excited for a new year to continue enjoying life? I would love to hear about what you are doing different or the same in this new year. 

2016 | A Year of Growth

There are moments when I think back to 2016 and I don't even know where to begin. As I said yesterday in my post about my hopes for 2017, it was a year of highlights, lessons learned, and growth. It's interesting how much can stay the same in a year, yet how much things can change. I have no doubt that I am not the same person who celebrated New Year's Eve with friends in 2015 and will without a doubt not be the same person who celebrated New Year's Eve December 31, 2016. 

A few key highlights come to mind when I think of this past year. From family time, to welcoming our sweet nephew, spending time with friends, and taking on a new coaching adventure, this year was definitely not a boring one. And although all these little memories made this year what it was, learning we were going to have a baby girl and our trip to New Mexico definitely stand out when I think of all the excitement that 2016 brought with it. 

Pregnancy. 

Learning that we were going to become parents was a pretty surreal feeling. It's amazing how quickly things change once you hear the confirmation of such an exciting, scary new adventure. Being able to spend 2016 preparing for our sweet little girl has been nothing short of amazing. I love how much closer it has brought M and I and how much excitement it has brought to our life.

Trip to Red River. 

M and I had a trip planned to Mexico to get away and relax but as soon as we found out that we had a little friend on the way, we had to cancel our trip due to the Zika virus that put the fear of life in every pregnant woman around (or maybe it was just me). So we ended up deciding last minute to go to the first place we ever went together as a couple. I absolutely love Red River in the summer and was happy to go there to celebrate this new adventure and our 4th wedding anniversary. 

Of course each year comes with lessons learned, either from good experiences or not so good experiences. In my case, it was definitely a combination of both. I feel lucky that through the good, the bad, the not so fun, and the exciting, I took different things away from each and was able to grow as a person, friend, family member, and professional. I feel like life is sometimes a constant learning experience. We never stop learning and finding things that we want to make changes to or that we are proud of ourselves for. I am hoping in 2017, I find more positives than negatives and can be proud of who I grow to be. Specific lessons learned definitely were about marriage and me as a person. 

Marriage. 

I learned a lot about the wife that I was and the wife that I wanted to be this past year. I look back and am not always proud of the time I wasted not being present with M or putting him on the back burner while I did other things. But ultimately, I'm thankful that those are lessons that I learned so that I can focus this year on putting him first, praying more for our marriage, and being a great wife while also balancing being a new momma. I feel as though great things are in store for our little family in 2017.

Personal.

The growth I have felt this past year has been huge compared to what I have felt in years past. I felt for a while that I was stagnate in my growth as a person. Things were changing around me but I just conformed to whatever I needed to survive. This past year, I feel I spent some real time on myself and it paid off by teaching me that I have alot to work on as a person but there are some good qualities in there also. I hope that 2017 will allow me to showcase those good qualities while slowly growing out of the not so good sides that I know can show up in different situations. 

I am thankful for all that this year brought and taught me. There is no doubt about that. It's funny how day by day, you think nothing changes, yet when you look back and start reflecting, each moment has truly changed the path or direction you are heading in a way that may not make sense until you turn around to look at where you came from and look back ahead to see how far you have come. Happy 2017 friends. Here's to an amazing new year full of endless possibilities and adventures that are awaiting you on your path. 

Exactly As We See It

As I was browsing instagram yesterday (instead of doing something productive) I came across a photo that caught my eye. When I went to read the caption, I found myself typing out a response before I had a moment to really think about the reason she had posted it. Jenni is a blogger that I followed even before I created a blog of my own. I got to meet her once when I helped our friend Shay capture the wedding of a sweet couple in Austin and have truly loved following along as her sweet daughter Pippa has come into her life and grown over the past year. 

Jenni posted a photo of balloons from sweet Pippa's birthday party and captioned it with this "This afternoon as I was playing in the living room with Pippa, I glanced over to the entry foyer where yesterday's helium balloons still floated at the ceiling. I noticed that the first of the balloons was giving up and slowly drifting to the floor, and it was one of those odd moments in life where you see one thing but it feels so representative of something else. I sat on the floor there and cried as I watched that little blush balloon sinking in mid air, and I was reminded that beautiful things usually have a life cycle and don't last forever- which is often part of what makes them so beautiful. Babies grow up, special days end, relationships fizzle, people or animals we love die... the list goes on. Watching that balloon made me so sad as it meant the end of something that brought me great happiness, but as they say...every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end. There is hope for tomorrow, and good stuff to come." 

Pretty powerful, don't you agree? I saw her picture and was captivated by what she wrote. Being the eternal optimist that I am, I quickly hit reply and said this "I absolutely love little moments like that. They make you stop and think about so much more than what the moment really is. I hate that it brought you sadness but it makes me wonder what all the balloons that are still afloat represent. Perhaps the things or people that stick around longer than others or will fight hard against the elements to stay exactly as they are?".  Jenni was so gracious to write me a sweet comment back but ever since then, I can't stop thinking about Jenni's take on the balloons and my own. 

From her perspective, she saw the balloons as they pertained to that moment in her life. Whether it was the fact that she had just celebrated the 1 year birthday of her sweet baby girl and that first year was coming to a close, or maybe it was that people or animals that she had loved weren't there to help her celebrate, or maybe it was representative of the relationships in her life. That's the great thing about social media is that sometimes, in midst of all the beautiful white filled photos, people are posting images that mean so much more than what we see. 

From my outsider view, I was able to look at the balloons and see the other balloons still holding strong to their stance on the ceiling. I didn't have the emotions or connection to that one balloon so my first instinct was to say "hey wait, what about all the other balloons". I feel like sometimes I look at the situations that people are in and wonder why they can't see the good through the fog of the bad. But Jenni's post made me realize it's because I don't have the connection with the whole picture. I only see the side of it that has not emotion or attachment. I was able to be optimistic because my view wasn't clouded by the raw emotion of what it meant to her. 

Take this picture for example. If I asked you to name the first thing that you see in it, or tell me what it means to you, would you say the clouds, the sky, the water, the way the sun is reflecting on the water? We would have totally different views from any one who comments because of our emotion attached to it. Whether it's more emotion because of what the waves at the beach represent or because we have little emotion based on the fact that we see the beach each day.  It was a nice reminder that the pictures that we post on social media, or even or blogs, will touch people in a way that we may never have even meant for them to or known that they would. Each picture is truly exactly as we see it. 

With Grace | Volume I

When I started to think about what I wanted in my "new" blog, I knew that I wanted to write about the life that I am living. I wanted to have a space to share the ups and downs, ins and outs, and highs and lows so that I could remember to look back on each hill and valley and see the lessons that I learned. I can't quite explain what having this space back means to me. It's so nice knowing that I have somewhere I can come and chat with friends (or myself) and just talk it out.

My hope is that every week or every month or heck every other month, I can come and just talk about living with grace in this crazy little world. Whether it be sharing what I'm thankful for, how I've tried to live with grace recently, or how I am blessed with grace and love, I just want to share it here. So without further waiting, I present to you Volume I of With Grace.

This week, I had a moment where I had to take a step back and was reminded of how blessed I was by the childhood that I had. My parents were the type of parents who never missed a game, swim meet, gymnastics meet. No matter how big or how small the game was, I knew that when I looked over, either one of my parents would be in the stands or sometimes coaching me from the sidelines. It makes me sad to see sweet kiddos who don't have that support. It was definitely something that I took advantage of and and didn't appreciate until I got older. My hope is that I can provide my sweet baby girl with those types of moments and a feeling of knowing her parents are there to support and cheer her on always.

Sometimes, with grace, is the only way to make it through a situation that seems just down right crappy. I have come to the realization, after many talks with family, friends, and my mother in law, that when I have an issue with someone, it is ultimately my issue. It may come from wanting to change them, not understanding why they see something differently than I do, or ultimately not agreeing with how they handle things. But what it boils down to is that what they are doing or have done doesn't bother them or make them sleep less at night, it is how I react that affects myself only. This has been a hard pill to swallow as I tend to hold people to a high regard in their actions but am slowly learning that it's my own pride and sometimes insecurities that makes me hold on to that frustration longer than I should.

This pregnancy has truly shown me what grace is all about. I have, without a doubt, loved this whole process. Every day, my body is performing this amazing feat of growing, providing for, and protecting this sweet baby. From the moment I wake up and feel her kicks, to the minute I lay down to enjoy some rest, I am amazed by the fact that I have been chosen to carry this sweet baby girl. I know that there are many trials and triumphs that will come along here very soon but oh how it will be worth it to do it all for my baby girl.

I hope you all have had an amazing week so far. I am so thankful to you for stopping in and following along with my randomness. It's amazing what this blog world has to offer and the people that it has brought into my life. I'm glad you are one of them. Happy Friday eve friends.