Tag: gratitude

focus on the wins…

It’s not even noon and I’m worried that I’ve wasted the day.

I took today off from work to tend to overdue doctors’ appointments. Ethan will have his four-month check-up (He’s past five months now). And I will have a “new patient” meeting with a primary care physician (This was scheduled over a year ago and then I had to push it farther back because I was too consumed by work).

The word, neglect, has been running through my head for the last day or so. Ethan’s delay in getting to his well-check appointment was due to illness, so it couldn’t be helped. But I’m pretty sure everything else that overwhelms me right now is mostly my fault.

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just a quick celebratory post…

For the last 22 days, I’ve consistently published a blog post every other day. I’ve never put up so many pieces within a month on this site before.

Consistency has always been an issue for me. I’d get started with a routine, gain some momentum, and then drop the ball.

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change up your energy…

Feeling off lately? Yeah, me too.

And it’s really weird because I felt so “in the flow” last week. Then the weekend hit and BAM—off.

I think a change up in energy is in order!

I’m always hoping that someone out there can take nuggets from these posts to help them in their own lives, but I have to admit that deciding to write about this today is also a little reminder to myself.

So… let’s do this together!

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saturday morning coffee…

On a Saturday morning back in February, I met my friend, Ali, for coffee. These weekend coffee dates had become a wonderful timeout from real life. For a couple hours, I could venture out into the world (just down the street, but still) as an individual person.

I didn’t have to struggle with getting a kid, or four, in and out of the car. I could just pull into a parking space and get myself out of the car; it was a lightness that I rarely felt anymore.

Our conversation that day spanned many topics—from plants to how much our time is worth to how our mindsets shift as we move through life.

Somewhere in the middle of our conversation, I had an epiphany. And then sometime after that, I forgot what it was. (This is why we can’t have nice things.)

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the world owes me nothing…

the world owes me nothing … we owe each other the world.

Ani Difranco, “joyful girl“

Almost one year ago today I began writing a post about gratitude. It’s so important to talk about and I’m sorry that it took me this long to revisit the draft. But I kept getting a nudge to finally get my thoughts on this phenomenon out there, and I’m happy to be seeing it through now.

Let’s get things rolling with a quick reader poll…

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here’s the problem with being sick…

My family has been some form of sick for over a month now. This is one of the drawbacks to being a part of a split household. Illness has the ability to bounce back and forth like its a ball in a pinball machine, hitting this person and that person, and maybe that one again.

As I write this, I have a throat infection and pink eye. Owen has a double ear infection and nasty cough as a result. Since it hurts to speak, I just keep having all of these thoughts swirling around in my head—things I have to do, things I have to tell people, things that I want to do, things that I worry about, etc. But I’m at a loss because of the sickness setback.

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the day you came along…

And on the day I was to be induced (but never actually got induced), a little boy (KNEW IT.) came into our lives. Owen Noah Insley entered this plane of existence on August 12th at 2:07 p.m., weighing in at 7 lbs, 3 oz. with a length of 20.5 inches. The miracle of birth, amiright?

Baby Owen smiles
Our smiley little dude.
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surrender to the sound…

I was talking to a friend of mine the other night about music. It was harmless enough⁠—talking about Nirvana and The Smashing Pumpkins⁠—but then nostalgia started doing the thing it does, when it instantly beams you back to a long forgotten moment in time and makes you feel things you don’t necessarily want to feel, but it hurts so good. It’s that car wreck that keeps you from averting your eyes. Ya know what I mean?

On this particular trip down memory lane, I landed back at my high school orientation. As I recall, that 14-year-old girl felt many things that day: scared, shy, embarrassed, lonely, and exposed. What will usually happen on a look-back, such as this one, is that I’ll let myself be taken away; I’ll feel all the feelings and get lost in the mini-movie in my mind. I’ll sit in the sadness for a little while and feel a deep sense of loss. On this night, however… I didn’t. Instead, I laughed. I laughed at, ultimately, how small that moment really was. And I smiled knowing that there was a big world full of big experiences yet to be had. But why? Why, this time, did I feel joy instead of melancholy?

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collect the moments, one by one…

I am only a few months behind getting a post up, but I wanted to begin this blog with gratitude. I am so, so thankful for where I have been guided so far in this beautiful phase of life, which brings me to the proverbial elephant in the room⁠—I’m only several weeks away from giving birth to my fourth child. In fact, as I type this, my belly is going wild with all sorts of “fun” rolling motions. (Like, have you ever been woken up by an earthquake and you have that sensation of your environment being a part of a universal flash mob of The Wave? Well, that’s what my stomach feels like.)

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