We love our girl. What a blessing.
Friday, March 30, 2012
Happy 18 months to my Lina-Beena
A year and a half ago - Sept 29, 2010 - our sweet Lina Annette came into the world. What a day that was. We had the most amazing midwife and nurses. It was a hard labor, but she did come out, big and chunky and posterior - 8'15.6" Now she is a skinny little bean who captures our hearts again and again. She melts our hearts with her smiles, impromptu kisses, and cracks us up as she makes up her own jokes and laughs away.
We love our girl. What a blessing.
We love our girl. What a blessing.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Anger... what to do?
A few days ago, my feeling got hurt. I was really mad at my friend. I knew it immediately as I pulled away to head to work.
During college, I realized I was very good at sweeping my feelings under the rug, and found myself kicking myself daily for my struggles in relationships. I viewed my feelings of frustration, anger, and hurt, as indicators of my failure, and I was utterly confused by what I even felt. From my viewpoint, healthy people had no issues... I was alone in my struggles. I would go months and weeks with nightmares and IBS issues, before I even realized something was wrong. When I did figure it out, I would struggle for months on end before opening myself up to my friends.
After college God performed a miracle in my life. I had started going to counseling due to a painful relationship I had just finished, and found myself facing a lot of my past I had pushed away. That summer was hell. I barely made it day to day. At the end of the summer I went to a retreat. There was nothing spectacular about it. However, I realized at the end of the weekend that I had not loathed myself daily... In the past, I had worked so hard to stop kicking myself, had asked God repeatedly to heal this part of me... and it never was taken.
However, he did take it away somewhere around the time of the retreat. I have no idea why God chose then, but He did.
One of the things I realized through counseling was that I needed to let myself experience hurt, anger, disappointment etc. This is so hard to do after a lifetime of denial and pushing things under the rug.
So, back to my friend. After realizing my anger and hurt immediately, I let myself feel the emotions and work through them as best as I could on my end. I took a risk, and called her the next day. I shared with her that she hurt my feelings. We worked through it. It was incredible. It was so freeing.
I am still afraid. Very afraid of opening myself up. I am very ready for the person on the receiving end to discount me, and reaffirm the lies I have believed that I am not worth being valued. Rejection is so scary.
If it were not for God and the people He has placed in my life, I would not be moving towards health the way I am today.
Like many posts, I am wary that I will face the very issue I am sharing as soon as this is posted, but I can say I am grateful - even if it hurts more than I would every choose - I know I will grow. I would rather grow and experience intense pain, then to bow out of struggling and live a life masked by happiness that is actually empty, self-loathing, and incredible sad.
During college, I realized I was very good at sweeping my feelings under the rug, and found myself kicking myself daily for my struggles in relationships. I viewed my feelings of frustration, anger, and hurt, as indicators of my failure, and I was utterly confused by what I even felt. From my viewpoint, healthy people had no issues... I was alone in my struggles. I would go months and weeks with nightmares and IBS issues, before I even realized something was wrong. When I did figure it out, I would struggle for months on end before opening myself up to my friends.
After college God performed a miracle in my life. I had started going to counseling due to a painful relationship I had just finished, and found myself facing a lot of my past I had pushed away. That summer was hell. I barely made it day to day. At the end of the summer I went to a retreat. There was nothing spectacular about it. However, I realized at the end of the weekend that I had not loathed myself daily... In the past, I had worked so hard to stop kicking myself, had asked God repeatedly to heal this part of me... and it never was taken.
However, he did take it away somewhere around the time of the retreat. I have no idea why God chose then, but He did.
One of the things I realized through counseling was that I needed to let myself experience hurt, anger, disappointment etc. This is so hard to do after a lifetime of denial and pushing things under the rug.
So, back to my friend. After realizing my anger and hurt immediately, I let myself feel the emotions and work through them as best as I could on my end. I took a risk, and called her the next day. I shared with her that she hurt my feelings. We worked through it. It was incredible. It was so freeing.
I am still afraid. Very afraid of opening myself up. I am very ready for the person on the receiving end to discount me, and reaffirm the lies I have believed that I am not worth being valued. Rejection is so scary.
If it were not for God and the people He has placed in my life, I would not be moving towards health the way I am today.
Like many posts, I am wary that I will face the very issue I am sharing as soon as this is posted, but I can say I am grateful - even if it hurts more than I would every choose - I know I will grow. I would rather grow and experience intense pain, then to bow out of struggling and live a life masked by happiness that is actually empty, self-loathing, and incredible sad.
Anger... what to do?
A few days ago, my feeling got hurt. I was really mad at my friend. I knew it immediately as I pulled away to head to work.
During college, I realized I was very good at sweeping my feelings under the rug, and found myself kicking myself daily for my struggles in relationships. I viewed my feelings of frustration, anger, and hurt, as indicators of my failure, and I was utterly confused by what I even felt. From my viewpoint, healthy people had no issues... I was alone in my struggles. I would go months and weeks with nightmares and IBS issues, before I even realized something was wrong. When I did figure it out, I would struggle for months on end before opening myself up to my friends.
After college God performed a miracle in my life. I had started going to counseling due to a painful relationship I had just finished, and found myself facing a lot of my past I had pushed away. That summer was hell. I barely made it day to day. At the end of the summer I went to a retreat. There was nothing spectacular about it. However, I realized at the end of the weekend that I had not loathed myself daily... In the past, I had worked so hard to stop kicking myself, had asked God repeatedly to heal this part of me... and it never was taken.
However, he did take it away somewhere around the time of the retreat. I have no idea why God chose then, but He did.
One of the things I realized through counseling was that I needed to let myself experience hurt, anger, disappointment etc. This is so hard to do after a lifetime of denial and pushing things under the rug.
So, back to my friend. After realizing my anger and hurt immediately, I let myself feel the emotions and work through them as best as I could on my end. I took a risk, and called her the next day. I shared with her that she hurt my feelings. We worked through it. It was incredible. It was so freeing.
I am still afraid. Very afraid of opening myself up. I am very ready for the person on the receiving end to discount me, and reaffirm the lies I have believed that I am not worth being valued. Rejection is so scary.
If it were not for God and the people He has placed in my life, I would not be moving towards health the way I am today.
Like many posts, I am wary that I will face the very issue I am sharing as soon as this is posted, but I can say I am grateful - even if it hurts more than I would every choose - I know I will grow. I would rather grow and experience intense pain, then to bow out of struggling and live a life masked by happiness that is actually empty, self-loathing, and incredible sad.
During college, I realized I was very good at sweeping my feelings under the rug, and found myself kicking myself daily for my struggles in relationships. I viewed my feelings of frustration, anger, and hurt, as indicators of my failure, and I was utterly confused by what I even felt. From my viewpoint, healthy people had no issues... I was alone in my struggles. I would go months and weeks with nightmares and IBS issues, before I even realized something was wrong. When I did figure it out, I would struggle for months on end before opening myself up to my friends.
After college God performed a miracle in my life. I had started going to counseling due to a painful relationship I had just finished, and found myself facing a lot of my past I had pushed away. That summer was hell. I barely made it day to day. At the end of the summer I went to a retreat. There was nothing spectacular about it. However, I realized at the end of the weekend that I had not loathed myself daily... In the past, I had worked so hard to stop kicking myself, had asked God repeatedly to heal this part of me... and it never was taken.
However, he did take it away somewhere around the time of the retreat. I have no idea why God chose then, but He did.
One of the things I realized through counseling was that I needed to let myself experience hurt, anger, disappointment etc. This is so hard to do after a lifetime of denial and pushing things under the rug.
So, back to my friend. After realizing my anger and hurt immediately, I let myself feel the emotions and work through them as best as I could on my end. I took a risk, and called her the next day. I shared with her that she hurt my feelings. We worked through it. It was incredible. It was so freeing.
I am still afraid. Very afraid of opening myself up. I am very ready for the person on the receiving end to discount me, and reaffirm the lies I have believed that I am not worth being valued. Rejection is so scary.
If it were not for God and the people He has placed in my life, I would not be moving towards health the way I am today.
Like many posts, I am wary that I will face the very issue I am sharing as soon as this is posted, but I can say I am grateful - even if it hurts more than I would every choose - I know I will grow. I would rather grow and experience intense pain, then to bow out of struggling and live a life masked by happiness that is actually empty, self-loathing, and incredible sad.
Friday, March 16, 2012
Cuddler
Jon's walking put him to sleep
When Ezzie first came out of the womb, his eyes were big with curiosity. I still remember that while he was first breastfeeding, he was looking at everything. We soon discovered that Ezzie was happiest when he was being walked around. As soon as we would sit down once he fell asleep, he would perk right back up and give a wail until we were walking again. He was not much of a cuddler... he wanted to see the world.
With time, Ezzie is becoming more of a cuddler. I LOVE it! There are some downsides... he is more likely to be in our bed in the middle of the night is the main one. However, there is something so precious about how if I lay down with him or a nap, he wants to hold my hand as he falls asleep.
Last night Ezzie had a horrid cough, high fever, and had really bad allergies from the day before. We were up most of the night. While I do like my sleep, I kept thinking about how much I love how he cuddles up.
Don't get me wrong, Ezzie still likes to see the world, and may only cuddle for a second when he is perfectly healthy... but he now loves to cuddle when he is sleeping, or just not feeling good.
Now Lina is a cuddler... who knows.. she may flip like him.. but I hope not :)
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Painting... and learning some discipline
So, I finally painted the hallway! The first color we bought was too pink, and the people at Sherwin Williams were awesome enough to change the color for us for free. Jon's mom was tickled by the pink, but we weren't too keen on a blue kitchen attached to a pink hallway - sorry Marla!
Where in discipline-land does this affect us? Well, we are working hard to pay off some debt, and to live better off our means. Learning self-discipline has been hard for us both. We aren't big spenders by any means, but we honestly have very little means to be any-type (even non-spenders) of spender.
This year we sat down and budgeted money into categories that are important for us. Little by little we are saving up for traveling to see family, having medical money, home spending money, a bit of savings, etc.
So, to buy even a gallon of paint, non-clearanced... I keep checking the clearance section in hopes of coming across a gallon for 7 or less that would simply work... takes awhile to save-up for. We did! So, one more room done, and a contemplation for the front room going on.
Though the pictures aren't hung up yet and the trim isn't painted, hopefully you can see the difference before and after :)
BEFORE
AFTER
Where in discipline-land does this affect us? Well, we are working hard to pay off some debt, and to live better off our means. Learning self-discipline has been hard for us both. We aren't big spenders by any means, but we honestly have very little means to be any-type (even non-spenders) of spender.
This year we sat down and budgeted money into categories that are important for us. Little by little we are saving up for traveling to see family, having medical money, home spending money, a bit of savings, etc.
So, to buy even a gallon of paint, non-clearanced... I keep checking the clearance section in hopes of coming across a gallon for 7 or less that would simply work... takes awhile to save-up for. We did! So, one more room done, and a contemplation for the front room going on.
Though the pictures aren't hung up yet and the trim isn't painted, hopefully you can see the difference before and after :)
BEFORE
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)