The Mom Blah Blah Blog

I have been thinking a lot about mental illness lately. Firstly because it touches my life through my mother in Law and also because I have been reading the blog of a friend who's has been discussing the topic. What I have realized is how many people out there are touched by mental illness. I am discovering more and more people every day with someone close to them that suffers from this disease. When I was 19 I attended the University of Guelph for psychology and I remember learning about some different forms of mental illness. I also remember thinking it was something that was out there in a distant place that didn't really touch my life. I am beginning to believe it was just swept under the rug before. What I wonder now is if keeping these issues quiet was in fact contributing to making the situations worse. If someone has heart disease or cancer do they feel shame and fearful of the reaction of others? I would think no. It is no ones fault that they end up sick or...

We had Christmas with Randall's mom's side on the weekend and it was a great time of visiting. Trinity and Alex really enjoyed playing with their 2 second cousins. They got spoiled with gifts and candy and even though Alex was sick they still didn't have problems with fighting and crying. All in all it was a great trip. However, as I sat in the living room and glanced at Randall's mom, just staring at the TV and not interacting, I couldn't help but be slightly saddened. She speaks very little to anyone, doesn't interact much with the children, is extremely thin to the point of looking gaunt and has a lot of trouble getting around. One of the only things she talked about was how she fell in her room last week and how her leg hurts. You see, Randall's mother has Schizophrenia. She also has had many joint problems and has had both her hips replaced. They have never quite healed well and she has a lot of trouble getting around. She lives on her own but...

Alex had a play date today and as so I was able to sit and chat with another mom. It was nice. I enjoyed the company and the interaction that 2 year olds have, or avoid. Alex has changed a lot in the last few months. He used to be very quiet and wouldn't speak when we were out. Now he's become quite energetic and enthusiastic when we are in the company of others. I both enjoy that he has come out of his shell and dislike it. It was sort of nice before to know that if we were in the company of others I would have a quiet and demure child. During the mommy chat we inevitably got around to the topic of child development. It was reassuring to hear that this mom isn't competitive and realizes that kids grow at their own pace. As long as we are doing what we think is best I believe kids will reach the potential that they have in them. It doesn't really matter how much they are talking at 18 months or it they walked at a year. I'm pretty sure that they will all...

I've been on a journey to improve my self esteem for many months now. Giving up negative self talk for Lent was the catalyst that really launched my attitudes and emotions to the forefront but truthfully this has been a problem lurking under the surface for years. As such it's been really difficult to dig down to the root and make sure it never comes back. Like the many dandelions in our yard I know I have missed a few. Though I have done well at throwing most of the major offenders in the trash I know there are some little sprouts that have been popping up again lately. I do understand that even the most well manicured lawns are never perfect. Even my my neighbours get the occasional weed. However, I feel I have some gardening to do again. I have made a number of improvements in my health and wellness lately and have even been able to sleep a little more readily and soundly (I have bouts of insomnia), but I have been starting to feel once again like it's not enough...

All of the walls in the house are now painted! We do need to paint a lot of trim still, we haven't worked on the bathrooms and we don't have any baseboards but we are getting closer. What I have now come to notice is how much wall space we have and how naked those walls are. This has inspired me to find art. I have purchased a few art photos that I love and have finally gotten them in frames. I also found a nice big canvas at Home Sense I got a great deal on. I am rather picky though and I have been having trouble finding art that A) I like B) I can afford and C) goes with the colours of our house. This means I need to think a little more creatively so I decided I was going to make a little modern art for a gift for Randall for Christmas. I was hoping to keep it a surprise but it is quite difficult to hide a painting that is 24" by 48" and still wet. Although his night shift gave me a good opportunity to work on it while the kids were both in bed and he wa...

I bought myself a poinsettia the other day. This isn't earthshaking. It is sort of silly thing for me to do though because I can't keep a plant alive... well, to save my life. I'm pretty sure it will be dead by Christmas. I couldn't help myself though, they remind me of my Grandmother. She passed away over 10 years ago now but I think of her every time I see a poinsettia. You see, her birthday was December 23rd. Somewhere along the way I bought her a poinsettia for a gift. Really, what else do you get for the woman that doesn't ask for anything? That purchase ended up being our little tradition. If it got to be her birthday and I had not arrived with poinsettia in hand I could be sure of a phone call. It would go something like this. "Rachel, do you know what today is? Where is my poinsettia?" I would then need to rush right out to her place to deliver it although that was usually where I was headed anyway. In recent years there has been a dr...

I've been thinking about this for a little while and wondering if I should post about this or not. I have doing my best to just get over it and let things go that can not be changed now but that is something that is very unnatural for me. I have a lot of trouble letting hurts go and I know that I'm not the only one with this problem. The issue I'm having is I keep getting reminded very regularly of the situations that hurt me. Then once I am reminded of what has happened I can't help but think of how different things would be for me right now if they didn't happen. The other issue I have had with this is it's causing me to doubt myself in so many ways. It casts doubt on my relationships, skills, and mostly I feel it shattering my very new found confidence. I'm not really sure of how I can protect my fragile esteem and still walk confidently forward when I am being regularly reminded of my failures. I know full well that nothing in life comes easily a...

Just like that, Christmas is around the corner. I'm feeling that this year people are more in the mood for Christmas than other years. The decorations seem to be going up earlier, the music is already playing, the kids Christmas movies are in rotation and the gift lists are growing daily. That's the part that has me concerned. It seems that Trinity has reached the age of the I wants. Every thing she sees she says, "I'm getting that for Christmas." She's jumped right past I'm asking for ______ and is making the assumption that any thing she wants she WILL be getting. It's strange for me to think of how it go to this point with her. We have never just given her anything she has wanted. In fact, there was a time she thought we were going to loose our house because we kept telling her we didn't have money for this, that and the other thing. Since she knew that the house we now live in was repossessed before she figured if we didn't have a...

I have heard so many times growing up that when God closes a door, He opens a window. This has been a sort of process I have used to try and discern what it is I should be doing with my life. There have been a few situations where I haven't known what would be my best choice of action so I have let this be my guide. For example, when I applied to Conestoga for Radio and Television broadcasting I wasn't sure if it was what I should be doing. I decided that if I was accepted into the program (over 1,000 applications for 20 slots) then I would know it was for me. Completing that program did not lead to a career in that field it did lead me to finding my husband so it did lead to my Homemaker career. There have been quite a number of times that I have let this sort of maze of closed doors direct my path but I have now reached a point where I have started to wonder if this has also lead to me giving up on opportunities to quickly. There are times when I have ventured down a p...

I picked up the Oprah Magazine the other day. I don't often buy magazines. For the most part I find them a huge waist of money since they're overpriced and the promises touted on the cover are not usually met by the articles. Most of the time I see a story that interests me and once I get it home and read it I end up disappointed by the lack of insight offered withing the overly processed model strewn pages. I haven't made it through all the pages yet but so far I have really enjoyed this issue. I mean, they even complimented my taste in the excellent paint colour choice I made for our living room wall. All joking aside though the articles have so far been enlightening and informative. One article I found especially interesting was one on Burnout. Though this isn't something that I am experiencing right now I could recognizes the helpfulness of the steps they gave for coming back from the brink. I know that in this day in age there are a lot of people out there...

Oh, for the years in our 20's when gaining an hour with daylight savings time was bliss and we used that time to squeeze in an extra hour of something interesting and adventurous. There was nothing better than knowing that it was time to "fall back", those extra minutes a little blessing we looked forward to every year. I remember the first daylight savings time after we had our daughter. I still was under the mistaken impression that it would be a wonderful time of blessed extra sleep. Little did I know how that one time blessing had turned into a curse. Instead of gaining a hour, once you have kids, you actually seem to loose even more time. "How can this be possible?" You think as you open your eyes at 6am instead of the 7:30 or 8 o'clock you were expecting. You even thought ahead! You kept that little one up for an extra hour the night before so they definitely did not get the same number of hours they are used to and you spent and extra hour t...

There is nothing like a trip to a plastic surgeon to make you feel like you should NOT be satisfied with how you look! Today was my appointment to see if it would be possible to get a breast reduction covered by OHIP . It was a disturbing visit. The Doctor asks you all sorts of questions and makes lots of recommendations to let you know how far from ideal you body looks. After asking me how tall I am and how much I weigh he asked one of my favorite questions of the session. "So what is your goal weight?" So much is implied by this question. The first thing I though was that in his opinion the weight I am now could not possibly be the weight I want to be. When I stated that I'm pretty close to how I would like to be the look of surprise and disbelief showed me that he could not possibly understand why I wouldn't want to be thinner than that. I told him at most I thought I could loose another 10 lbs or so and his reply was if I would like to loose 20 then I sho...

There is a little mystery in my house that I can't quite figure out. It's just something unusual that has been picking at my brain. I thought I would share this mystery in case by chance someone can figure it out for me. The other day when I was changing Alex and looking out his window I noticed a purple splatter on it. My first thought was, "Oh dear, what has he gotten into this time." It would not have been the first occurrence of Alex smearing something on his window. We have had a lotion incident as well as a baby powder blow out. I grabbed a cloth to wipe the mess off and came to the realization that the splatter is actually on the outside of his window. This has set my mind in motion and for the life of me I can't figure out what it is or how it got there. Alex's window is on the second story and looks out over the roof of the living room that extends past the house. So if it was someone that had thrown something at the house they would have ha...

It's been a while since I have done a post about the changes in my self esteem battle. I thought it would be good to give a little update. It seems I'm doing pretty good actually. My confidence has been boosted and I have started to come to terms with some of the things that caused me problems in the past. I have actually been able to come to grips with the concept that a lot of the damaging things that have happened were really not my fault and I am making the effort to not claim them as my responsibility. Some times it's more difficult to do this than others but step by step I'm getting there. When I have a negative thought that relates to something that has hurt me I try to take a second to recognize that relationship and then dismiss the insult to myself. This is easier to do about my physical self than myself personally. Where as before most of my negative outlook was based on my physical appearance now my negativity is directed towards my personality. I r...

Finances are such a sticky subject! How much someone makes is by no means an indication of their financial stability. This is one of the reasons that I find watching the show Till Debt Do Us Part so much. It makes me feel very responsible. We met with a financial planner last week to take a look at how we are headed financially and things are okay but it's always a tricky balancing act to keep your head above water. It's no wonder to me that so many couples split up over financial problems. We hear quite often how we are some of the richest people in the world just by virtue of living in an affluent country. Though this is true it still doesn't mean that we can live outside our means. That can be a huge temptation in a society such as ours. Though my husband and I have pretty similar stances on spending and we both try to be as thrifty as possible that doesn't mean that we are all set. I am, after all, a stay at home mom and my husbands work was quite slow this...

I have been trying to think of an appropriate goal for the next 90 days. During the next 90 days however, there are a few things that are up in the air. One thing is the appointment I have with a specialist about the possibility of having a breast reduction. There is potential that I could have surgery some time in the foreseeable future. This has also shifted some of my focus towards my posture. Since I know that having surgery will not automatically fix my posture and cause the hunch in my back to disappear I made an appointment with a chiropractor. I think this has made my goal a little clearer. When I had my first appointment x-rays were done and from looking at those and a profile picture I have been able to see what's causing the problems with my back. It seems the base of my spine curves in to much and between my shoulders and the bottom of my neck curve out to much. Most notably there is one vertebrae that is starting to stick out quite far, hence the...

I've started this blog entry about 4 times now and scrapped it. I'm just not sure of the right way to voice the frustration I'm feeling or the emotions I'm experiencing. I've taken a few knocks lately and though I understand completely the reasons behind the decisions some people have made it's still difficult to not take those decisions personally. Each time I think I am moving on and coming to grips with a setback a new situation will bring me right back to the last problem. I'm feeling very disconnected lately, and frankly a little lonely. Being involved in direct sale companies hasn't created this problem or made it any worse however, it does very quickly bring to light my lack of a friend network. I feel I'm making myself very vulnerable right now but I suppose it can't make my situation worse. From the outside people might not realize this about me since I have a lot of acquaintances but recently I just feel that I'm hungering for...

Today I am making a request of all of you. My cousin needs prayer. His name is Mark Lewis, he is married with 2 beautiful little guys and he has recently been diagnosed with a very severe and aggressive type of cancer called angio-sarcoma. He has had some surgery and is undergoing aggressive treatment but he and his family could really use a huge heaping helping of prayer. Though this is an aggressive form of cancer I have seen miracles before and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that miracles are possible. I have seen them! So please remember him and his family in prayer. Pray for strength, comfort, faith, peace, healing, and enormous blessings to be poured out on them. I will be attending a fund raiser for him this coming Saturday the 16th. They could also use a financial blessing to make the burden of his time in treatment easier to bear. Prayer for a good turn out and a financial blessing for them would be appreciated as well. Thank you in advance for remembering Mark a...

There have been a few setbacks I've experienced lately that have frustrated me. When I get frustrated the first thing to go is sleep. I just can't seem to turn my brain off. Even if I'm not worried I'm still going over the outcome of every choice and attempting to pick a direction that will lead to the best results. Apparently my body and brain thing the best time for doing this is 3am. This means the frustration is followed by too little sleep and if I'm not careful I start feeling grumpy and depressed. Since I am aware of this possible outcome I am now able to head it off at the pass. Lately I am better equipped to handle sleeplessness and frustration but one can never be to careful. I have heard that a good "treatment" for depression is to keep a gratitude journal. This seems fitting since this weekend is Thanksgiving. So today I am going to make a list of some of the things I'm thankful for. I would encourage you all to do the same. I w...

I was hoping to book a massage with my massage therapist a few weeks ago and called her up to discover some bad news. It seems she has had a really difficult summer. Back in march she was having problems with her arm and through some testing they discovered a tumor. They did a few more simple tests over the next few months never really figuring out anything except that the tumor that was 3 cm in March was 7 cm in July. That same month she was on vacation and swatted a fly only to break her arm! There is a 7 inch fracture in her arm that does not seem to be healing because of the tumor. Not only that but she hasn't even had a biopsy yet. She has another appointment scheduled this week and she is understandably concerned. An arm is a very unfortunate place for a massage therapist to have a tumor, not that there is a good spot to have one. She is a very active, determined and strong woman though and this has really damaged her spirit. Not only is she unable to continue much ...

Today is the 10 year anniversary of the day I met my husband. I thought it would be interesting to let people know how we met. I would say it's a rather unusual way for a christian couple to have met. I was attending Conestoga College for Radio and Television Broadcasting and it was a rather wild bunch. One Friday night a few of us decided we were going to go out dancing at the Rev in Waterloo. Since I had a car I acted as chauffeur/DD a lot of the time. Also since we were mostly broke we always wanted to arrive anywhere before cover. After work I picked up Juli and Mark and headed back to my place to get ready. By this time I had to get ready very quickly and while I showered and did my makeup, Mark picked my outfit. I threw it on and we dashed up to the Rev just in time to get in for free. Just inside the door while everyone waited in line for the bank machine I noticed Dean, a friend from another year in our program. He was there with friends from high school celebrati...

Humility. This was the subject of discussion on Sunday and I sat down thinking this should be an interesting topic for someone who is struggling with not thinking highly enough of myself. At first thought being humble doesn't seem to be something I have to much trouble with. I mean, I think more highly of pretty much everyone than I do myself. Great, now I'm worried that I sound like I'm bragging about how humble I am. It seems I have been confusing humility with self deprecation. This doesn't really translate to humility at all since it really does take a lot of focus on oneself to bring yourself down like that all the time. A good comparison that was shared was that humility is thinking of yourself less not thinking less of yourself. Being self deprecation really does draw a lot of focus on oneself even if it's not positive or uplifting it's still attention that could be shifted elsewhere. I have thought before of how people will sometimes try to pick...

Today I am having a very difficult day with my self esteem. I have been beating myself up a lot and feeling a bit like a failure. I had been on such a good upward climb I suppose I would end up sliding back a few steps here and there I just had hoped I wouldn't backslide. You see I started to read Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gain by Portia de Rossi . It's a story of her struggle with bulimia and self image. I had heard a few people say they were reading it and it was quite good so I picked it up from the library yesterday and dove in. Now I don't want the people who recommended this book to feel bad because truthfully reading a book like this should be helpful to me. Unfortunately this shows me that I am not "over" my destructive thinking. This might sound very strange but I have always in a sick and twisted way admired women who are anorexic or bulimic. I have envied their self control and ability to resist eating over a certain number of ...

Ryan Blair is a very successful multimillionaire entrepreneur and one of the founders of ViSalus. This book tells us how he has gotten to where he is today. For someone that doesn't have much business experience and has dabbled in my own small start up companies this was an extremely helpful book. It showed me where I have gone wrong in the past and pointed out traits that will both work in my favor and others that I will need to overcome. I enjoyed that Ryan does not come across as someone that has done everything right. He draws as much, if not more, experience from his mistakes and failures as he does on his successes. He is not afraid to point out the things about himself that have held him back and this is something I have found most helpful. Sometimes you get the impression from very successful people that they have had all the luck, all the opportunity, all the chances and that they really didn't have to work for what they have gotten. With Ryan you really see th...

Over the last little while I have been thinking about relationships that just sort of slipped away. I've been remembering people that I used to enjoy spending time with and wondering what happened. A lot of the time I expect that if I am interesting enough people would want to spend time with me and they would make the first move of contacting me. So when relationships sort of fade away I assume that it's because I just wasn't interesting enough for them to want to spend time with. Self confidence has played a big part in my letting friendships drift. I'm not sure why it never occurred to me that the other person could simply be thinking it was me that wasn't interested in spending time together. I'm attempting now to remedy the situations that I have created and recontact some people from my past. It's going to take some time and some doing but I know it will be worth it. Last week I had a great coffee "date" with a friend I haven't se...

Obviously I have been thinking a lot about health and fitness lately. I have been doing quite well with my running and I've been in a much better place mentally. This is not my first time attempting to be and stay fit however. In high school I did a lot of fad diets. None that worked even well enough for me to loose 5 lbs. I also was one of I believe 2 girls that ever set foot in the weight room in our high school. I think it even took a few years before I even found out we had a weight room. I tried that for a little while as well but no matter what I tried back then I was always the same weight. Looking back I can now say it's because I was already fit but when I looked in the mirror I did not see things that way. Over the years I stayed a pretty steady weight. There were some sight fluctuations physically but the big change was mental. I already had a fairly negative way of looking at myself and since I am a person that holds more value on words of affirmation, neg...

You know when someone tells you they aren't allowed to tell you something and it just makes you want to know about it all the more? That is what happened to me last Saturday. There was one of the ViSalus scientists talking about some of the ingredients in the flavor mix ins. He mentioned phytonutrients and then informed us that they are really great but the government doesn't allow them to tell us what they do. This made me very curious of course. So off I went to google! This is the web site I found. http://www.glyconutrientsreference.com/whatarephytonutrients.php It was a very intriguing read! It made me very happy that they thought to include this ingredient in the mix ins. I think I will have to be more diligent about using my flavor mixes. It also reminded me of a cancer treatment that was being taken by someone I know. She was getting very high dose vitamin C injections. This has been found to help greatly in being able to fight off cancer. The problem wit...

It's amazing to me how you can be going about your days just getting by and thinking everything is going pretty well, then something happens and you realize you weren't doing as good as you though you were all along. This is what happened to me. I was thinking about this as I was out for my run today and kept getting a lump in my throat just thinking how grateful I am for the what I have been given. I really did not realize how poorly I had felt for the last.... I'm not sure how long, until I started to feel so much better. I know my situation wasn't bad to begin with and that there will be many people who might think "what a whiner! Doesn't she know she doesn't have anything to complain about? Her life is good." Those people would be right. I know a lot of people I know could see that I wasn't really feeling happy and I knew I didn't have it so bad but emotionally I was down in the dumps and just couldn't bring myself out of it. I...

Today I am going to talk about a few of my faults and hope I can turn them into strengths. Some of these will be harder to do than others. I am really not good at organization! I'm a very scatter brained and disorderly person that tends to procrastinate. I am also very stubborn. That should be enough issues for one post. I know it's enough for me to handle right now. So at the start of the list to cover is my disorganization. Order is very difficult for me to accomplish. I do try by attempting to write notes and to put things in the same place every time. I can do quite well with that. If there is a place that I have set up for a certain thing I do make every effort to put it back there. The problem is there just isn't enough established locations for all the things I have but if I were to have someone organize and set me up for success I know it would be sometime I could continue. Note writing I enjoy. I really does help to focus my scattered mind on one item ...