OY! KRISTEN

Happy Monday!

I have a little thing I do when I'm a down. I take time to stop and reflect on my current situation and find reasons to be grateful. I wanted to share this with you today because I've been using this little exercise a lot more lately and I am hoping it will help encourage you in your current state, too :)

Lately, I'm feeling grateful for:

1. Everett eating apples these days. If you know our toddler struggles with healthy food, you know what a wonderfully big deal this is. He's asking to eat green apples! God loves me you guys.

2. Our new landscape. We had a few trees removed, a few trees planted, a ton of shrubs installed, a slew of beautiful stones and a dump truck of mulch fluffed all around our yard. I am like an 80-year-old garden lover in a 20-something body. I LOVE MY YARD. And it is giving me peace. And giving the birds a reason to come visit.

3. The birds are visiting my yard. This really deserves it's own line in my book of gratitude. I LOVE BIRDS. Add it to my list of elderly female hobbies. If you have a grandma, she and I would surely have a lot to discuss.

4. My baby boy Daxton is rolling over. Not all the time, but he's done it from front-to-back and from back-to-front and it honestly shocks me. And reminds me about how fast this baby thing goes the second time around.

5. Health. Safety. Recovery. America. Chocolate, which I'm allowing myself to have again, after about a month of no sweets and no alcohol. What even ever. Mama needs chocolate. And wine, if we're being really honest.

6. Okay, a bonus gratitude because I'm currently watching my two boys "playing" together on the floor and it's really making me smile. Watching the two of them together is as heart warming as everyone told me it would be. Actually, it's even better :)

I've been overwhelmed, friends.

It's been utterly hard. I am grateful for my friend Laura, who told me, "Hard is hard." I've been feeling a little embarrassed about how hard it's felt for me these last few months. So many people have it harder than me, so I have a difficult time putting my feelings into words when I feel like someone out there has it worse off than me. But her words have helped me. "Hard is hard" means that my hard still matters. Just because someone else's hard seems more challenging or more deserving of the title - my experience is still allowed to be hard.

Hard is hard, friends.

I don't have this wrapped up in a pretty bow. I don't have a lot of answers today, or a 3-point blog post featuring my revelatory and wondrous advice, or the 10 secrets to successfully winning at life after having a hard time. I'm in the middle of a process, on the road in this journey, in the midst of figuring out what's going to work. I'm praying, I'm researching, I'm meeting with people. I'm supported.

I'm messy these days, unraveling and undone. But I'm not alone. And while I'm tempted to linger in a minefield of my own feelings, I am at my best when I channel that energy into my health and most importantly - others. Meditating on these things I'm grateful for has helped bridge my feelings into positive action. I'm not saying it's the answer in life, but it has been a lifeline for me personally.

I hope you'll allow me to be this vulnerable with you. I took a week off the blog last week, which is the first time that has happened in years. I needed it, and there might be more hiatuses in the coming months as I figure out this balance of motherhood, family and writing. I appreciate all of you out there reading, because you have given me the opportunity to make this blog a place where I am always uplifted and inspired. You are loved, appreciated and celebrated by me! Thanks for reading this little corner of the internet. xox.

A Moment for Me.

It's 9:21 am and I am finally sitting down to my cup of coffee.

And an egg with avocado toast. Mmm. The smell of my coffee signals my consciousness that it's finally here, the coveted me time of the day. It's already been a maniacal morning, but in this very moment, a stillness washes over the room and I am almost at peace.

The baby is down for his morning nap, the husband is off at the salt mines (just kidding, work), and I have a few holy moments all to myself. Sometimes its hard to know quite what to do with these moments. There is a battle in my chest (I always imagine my mind in my chest, I don't know why?) throwing arrows at each other for who wins the awarded me time today. There is a rush from one side of my mind/chest that overwhelms me in a swelling wave, "Pick up the vacuum cleaner! Throw in that load of laundry (or 6)! Get started on food prep for dinner!", and there's another part of me that shouts, "Do something for yourself! Write that collaborative post for such and such company! Throw on some yoga pants and stretch! Submit a story to Real Simple Magazine (like you've been wanting to do)! Get back to those 6 people hanging out in your Gmail inbox that are waiting for your response!" Yes, the battle might seem silly to you. But it's my internal struggle. And then there's the never-ending to-do list. That could use some of my attention, as well. But the truth is, none of those things will reallllllly make me feel accomplished or valuable. In the moment, yes, I can do a few of those tasks and check the boxes on my list. And that is a good, valid reason to feel some sort of meaning today. But I want more than to just feel good and valid.

Sitting silently, hands cupped around this beautiful piece of glazed pottery containing the morning's mystical blackened ambrosia, well, that's just what I'm going to do right now. I'm going to sit. In silence. And I'm gonna drink my coffee.

Eyes closed, mug poised at my lips, I am going to quite literally drink in this whole long moment. You know what happens during this quiet moment? I get really, really grateful. This spirit of gratitude comes in its quiet, humble sort of way, and without asking permission, walks silently across the battlefield of my mind (chest). A hush. The quivers drop. The arrows fall lifelessly mid-flight. This little spirit of gratitude, looking much like Piglet from Winne the Pooh, hovers its way out onto the battle field. Stands there for a moment. And all of a sudden there is nothing sudden. Stillness extends from the east to the west of my internal atlas and the menace has halted. This is the moment, the one I've been waiting for.

I'm am going to gobble this moment up, whole, cultivating some meditation. The gratitude. It reminds me that I am a blessed woman, with a beautiful family to call mine. This family. The ones whom I've sacrificed much for - a slammin' career, a perfectly toned physique, all kinds of delicious selfish pursuits, and sometimes my sanity. But this sublime pyramid of human joy whom I am so proud of, so thrilled to be part of building; these sweet spirits who I would gladly tumble over a cliff for. My Stevie and my Everett. I am so grateful for this life. I wouldn't have it any other way. I would choose the path I've experienced over anyone else's life because it has been the sweetest, most personally deepening and even more surprising than I could have ever conjured.

Thank you Lord. I am appreciative for this moment on my morning, thankful for the reminder to be grateful, thankful for the truth that nothing worth having ever comes easily. But it is so worth it. And as the baby begins to cry again, I take a deep breath, because I am recharged with a faith in myself. Recharged with the peace. Recharged with the precious, darling caffeine.