Give and Take

Well... things have changed once again since writing this post about making changes. About two weeks ago I received notice that my CAPPA program was being canceled due to lack of interest. I was being issued a refund, and another date would not be set until they can generate enough interest for my area. I called the leader to find out if there was another program I could join but she informed me that they've been having trouble keeping the class sizes up, and was honestly not sure if there would be one at all this year.

Cue the sad music and the broken hearted emoji.

About a week later I received yet another large medical bill in the mail and the cold hard truth hit me: I simply cannot hold onto this money for a "hopefully it'll happen" dream when we have some serious debt to take care of. So, against my husbands instructions to stash the money in a shoe box until I can make things happen, we put it towards our always enlarging pile of bills. I am all too familiar with this type of sacrifice, which is probably why it didn't phase me.

Honestly, I was sad when I first found out the program wasn't happening but it's hard to stay sad when I see the pay off from using that money to help us get out of debt. It's not a life changing amount of money, or really even enough to pay off any one bill, but it will help. I am used to this situation, and I guess that's what it means to be a grown up- when you can put yourself last or your needs last for the greater good.

There is a "give" for me in the middle of this "take"... it gives me more time to focus on my bow business. I didn't anticipate to be so busy with orders before my shop is even completely open, so I consider this a blessing in disguise. Maybe its God's plan for this business to take off and I would have spent that money for nothing (you had to complete the program in a certain amount of time). Maybe His plan is for us to become pregnant soon and I wouldn't want to devote any time to studying.. who knows.

All I know is, despite this significant disappointment I am happily surprised at the quick success of my small business. Plus, it meant a lot to me that my husband was still willing to support my dreams, even in the midst of our semi-financial ruin. It says a lot about the type of man he is, willing to take on our hardships all on his own so I could focus on myself and the things I want. Right now though, my focus has shifted and what I want is to be able to give my daughter a life where she doesn't worry about money. The only way to do that is to make sacrifices now so this debt doesn't follow us into the years that she'll actually remember.

Strangely, I find it an exciting challenge to figure out ways to make traditions out of us being dirt poor. Like... what kind of memories can I create for her while spending $0.00 and all she knows is that it's something fun we do together as a family. I don't want her to have to think about these things until she is much older, and I want to be able to fund her passions... even if that means ignoring mine.

Office Update 2.0

As you may recall from this post we have been working on my office slowly but surely. When I think about how I used to get our entire house unpacked in a day (we moved a LOT) it's sort of depressing that we've been in this house for 9 months and we're only halfway done with every project haha! BUT, we do make progress one way or another every day... which is a huge deal in itself with a toddler!

The last time I updated about the office it was looking like this:

 

It's still not done, but let me share the progress I have made! Remember all those Mason jars from Averie's party that I had leftover? AND the 3 dozen I mistakenly bought in the wrong brand? Well, I was against giving them away just because it was such a big investment, so I've been finding other ways to use them:

 

Those are all the shabby flowers for my bow business. I originally had them in plastic baggies, but this is so much easier to see my entire inventory in one glance. The floating shelves were made by my super handy hubby from some scrap wood. These are above my "mailing station" for my business.

 

Ignore the empty gray frame on the wall. I'm not sure what I'm going to put in there yet, but I know that's the placement for it. That black filing cabinet used to be the only piece of office equipment I had. Now it's multi-functional. We use it to hold our appliance manuals, random receipts, and the tracking numbers for my shipped orders. (You can some ready to go in the boxes on the top)

 

Here's a close-up (for those of you that are nosey like me) It's pretty unexciting to the untrained eye, but to me, office supplies are crazy exciting! I didn't take a photo of inside the file cabinet, because well, that part was unexciting haha! (See that Mason jar rocking my stamps? Love those things!)

 

We painted the shelves "Polar Bear" by Behr to match the desk my husband made me. Speaking of the desk, here is another way I used those left over jars:

 

I love labeling things... and these jars that were originally adult party favors were perfect for all my crafting supplies. This picture makes my type-A heart happy! You can even sort of see Averie excited to get all up in there and mess it up on the right. Cleaning is Mommy's favorite, making messes is Averie's. Speaking of labels...

 

 



People with OCD can have a sense of humor too! Those flowers sit on top of my new (to me) file cabinets. I found these bad boys on my local online yard sale site for $10 total! They were 2 different sizes and widths but in otherwise great condition. When I got the idea to look for file cabinets, I was going to hide them away in the closet. Then, I decided this would be a great opportunity to bring in more of my accent color and had my husband bring home some spray paint. In 20 minutes they went from this:

 

 

 To this! If that doesn't make your heart flutter, I don't know what will! To me, the differences aren't that noticeable after being coated in the same color.

 

Plus, the difference in shapes ended up looking like a cute little corner unit:

As for what I used them for:

Fabric!!! Instead of having piles of it everywhere I thought it would be easier to file it (thank you Pinterest!) The top is all my solid colors and the bottom is all my patterned fabric. It's so beautiful I could cry... more heart flutters over here!

In the smaller cabinet, it wouldn't hold file folders so I decided to use it as storage for my finished bow collection storage (on the bottom) and my huge supply of tulle (on the top). Eventually I'm going to expand my bow shop to include tutus, so I've got a stock pile I inherited from my crafty mom ;)

There is still the matter of curtains- the ones I made didn't look good with everything else I had going on so it's back to the drawing board on those. I am still working on artwork as well. Painting some new things, and going through all the boxes of decor that have yet to see the light of day in this new house. The whole-room "after" shot is going to have to wait just a little longer, but I already love working in there!

Pssst- For those of you who have asked for the link to my bow shop on Etsy, here ya go!
itsy bitsy bowtique

Hitting Pause

Mason’s day came and went without any major melt downs or revelations. It was a really nice day, when we woke up my husband let me have some time to myself to write in Mason’s journal then he made us a nice breakfast. We couldn’t go to the coast like we normally do, but our local town has a zoo and a water play park for kids, and we figured between the two we would find a peaceful place to sit and remember Mason. On our way to the zoo, Averie fell asleep so we decided to hang out in the huge park in front of the zoo and have a picnic. It was such a sweet and peaceful lunch just the two of us while Averie slept. When she woke up we decided to go and check out the Japanese garden that was also over there and we stumbled upon the most beautiful little pond. It was so quiet and serene, we knew right away that we had found our new spot to be close to Mason. It has a beautiful red bridge, koi, and lots of lush greenery. There are also a lot of little peek-a-boo spots if I really wanted to sit and blend in with the scenery.

 

After we spent some time in the garden we made our way to the zoo. It’s a tiny zoo (it takes less than an hour to go through everything) but it was the first time we had been there that Averie actually noticed the animals. She LOVES animals but never really focused on the animals at the zoo in the past (the other kids got all her attention) so it was like going for the first time watching her discover each animal, watching her wave at them and ohh and ahh. It was so sweet! Afterwards we went to the water play area and let her run around in the fountains that shot water out of the floor. Again, she was kinda too little to really get it, but she loved running after all of the other kids. It was a nice surprise to walk up and see our cousins there too, so even though we had thought we wanted a day just to ourselves, it was really nice to sit and hang out with them and enjoy the sunshine. Averie just loves them, and they are so sweet with her (and we really love that particular cousin!) so it ended up being a really great day.

After we were all tired from the water and the sun, we went and got ice cream. Another 1^st for Averie (we usually wait until she’s asleep to indulge) but she loved it. She wasn’t really into the cold ice cream though, she loved the mini m&m’s! We don’t give her a lot of sweets (yes, I’m THAT mom) so it was a nice little treat to share on a hot day. We had dinner at home, just the three of us and we cuddled while watching movies. It was such a great day as a family without any distractions like our phones or the Internet. It’s always nice to unplug and really enjoy your time together… something I wish we did more of.

We were talking and (doing a little math) and realized that we needed to hit pause on the baby making train. It’s important to us to leave certain months as “reserved” – for lack of a better word – like March, December and June. March is all of our anniversaries and Averie’s birthday and cramming another birthday into an already packed month would be a little crazy. (2 of my siblings have birthdays in March too) So, that means no getting pregnant at the end of June or the beginning of July. June is, of course, Mason’s month which means no getting pregnant in September. To avoid December we can’t get pregnant in March (which is sort of hard since those are our anniversaries haha!). We both have parents with birthdays in December and they have always forbade us to have a December baby- they always had to share their birthday with Christmas and don’t want that for our kids.

A lot of people give us a hard time for trying to plan it out, but I don’t see what’s wrong with a little planning (have you met me?!) when it means we can really celebrate both financially and emotionally. Those months are crazy busy for us as it is, and I don’t want our kid’s birthday being just another thing we have to get done. We aren’t in any hurry, it’s in God’s hands when we get pregnant again. (Even if He thinks it should be in the off limits months, we would make it work of course.) So all that means is we wait and try again in August- and then have to stop again in September haha!- and try again October through February. If it ends up that we don’t end up pregnant until after Averie’s 2^nd birthday, then that’s what God has planned for us. It may sound stressful to some of you non-planners but having a solid plan actually makes me feel less stressed haha! Although, by August I probably won’t be nursing much if Averie keeps cutting out feedings, so it may be a non-issue and we get pregnant right away. Who knows? All I know is I feel good about it (even with a few pauses in the middle) and it’s pretty fun to practice haha!

June 11th, 2014

I have a confession to make, I have been actively avoiding my blog. There are times where my blog is great for me to figure out how I feel, unless there are times (like right now) that I don’t want to know how I’m really feeling. Or, I feel fine and I am scared that blogging will bring out some sort of hidden emotion I didn’t know was there.

Tomorrow would have been Mason’s 2^nd Birthday.

I have a weird calmness to me, something I am not used to feeling leading up to and surrounding this date. I also feel some sadness, wondering what our lives would be like right now with a 2 year old and a 1 year old but mostly I feel… nothing. That sounds colder than I mean it to, but I am not overcome with any sort of emotion, good or bad. Does that mean I’m healing or does that mean I am a heartless bitch who has already forgotten the pain? My daughter definitely fills many holes in my heart and I think as she grows up those holes will get smaller.

The best way I can explain my eerie disconnected emotions is that sometimes it feels like I’ve lived two separate lives… one with horrible pain and sadness and one with complete joy and happiness. Sure, I still get sad sometimes and it’s hard to believe that I’ve actually had this experience at all. It almost feels like someone else’s life. Like I’ve been watching a reality show of my life, while hanging out in the present with my daughter. It’s all very strange, and the fact that I’m not a mess is very foreign to me! I’ve lived so much of the last few years as a hot mess, trying to pretend like I’ve had it together. Maybe now, I am just more comfortable in my not-put-together-ness. I’m not really sure of the reasoning behind it, but I can tell you I am grateful for it. I know I felt similar on this day last year.

I know that sounds weird too, to be grateful to not be feeling anything… I guess I’m grateful to not be missing any moments of my daughter’s life because I was too busy being sad. One day I will tell her about her brother, and that it was the hardest thing her parents had to go through, but I also want to explain to her that through that experience I learned so much about myself, and so much about her daddy. I want her to know through this pain, we came out stronger. I would love to tell her why it is that we go to the beach on June 11^th every year, why we always wear blue on that day. I would also love to tell her that this experience made me into the mom I am for her now. But for now, it’s kind of like it gets to stay our little secret. My covert mission to becoming a better mom if you will. She’s too young to understand now anyway, and one day we will tell her all about Mason… although on some level I suspect she knows she has a guardian angel, because she’ll do something or say something that makes me think he’s watching over her.

As far as our plans for tomorrow go, we can’t go to the beach like we have done in the past. It’s too far from where we live now, but we will be near water. For some reason when it comes to Mason, I think of being close to the water and it makes me feel close to him. So we will have a family day, all in blue, near the water. I already let me husband know to give me some space tomorrow so I can write to him in his journal that I started before I even knew I was pregnant. I’ll tell him all about our year, his sister, our life. I know that he knows I miss him every day, that he is always on my mind… I know that he can feel the love I radiate towards him every day. I really do think my sense of calm and relief came from the comfort I found in Heaven Is For Real. I think about it every day, and it makes my heart so full, I don’t think I have the words to really describe the comfort that book gave me, knowing I’ll get to meet him one day. I still can’t say his name out loud and have a hard time hearing someone else say it but I’ll get there.

All of this gave me the freedom and courage to put those feelings aside so I can really be present for my daughter, which is a gift in itself. I feel like many moms who have lost a child feel guilty of those fleeting moments where you sort of forget what’s happened. Like you always have to be sad or people think you didn’t love your child enough. There are times when I am in the moment with my daughter or my husband or friends and I forget that this horrible thing happened to me… and you know what? That’s ok. He wouldn’t want me to never be able to enjoy my life. I think the concept of being ok with “forgetting” once in a while is really hard for moms like me, especially because it’s not one of those things that people want to admit they do, or something anyone wants to admit to. It’s life though, you can’t always be in your grief (just like you can’t always be happy) and once I realized it was ok to not think about it all the time it was so liberating! It was also freeing to see that just because I wasn’t “in it” for a while, didn’t take anything away from my experience or my love for him.

Tomorrow my son would have been 2, and sometimes I don’t know how to feel about it. Today though, I feel good and tomorrow? Who knows. I do know we will remember and celebrate him the way we do it best: as a family.