Beautifully Me and Sober

I have never had a green thumb. For the longest time the running joke in my family was that I had a black thumb. Even if I wanted to keep simple house plants alive they’d be deceased within the week. So, you can imagine my positive outlook when I realized that gardening was next on my list of hobbies to try. Before the summer season started a co-worker of mine gave me three plants and said, “It’s impossible to kill them. They will be great for you to learn with.” Of course while she’s encouraging me I’m nodding and smiling but I’m thinking, if only you knew. So I take them home and water them here and there and after a few days they start to wilt. I forgot to put them in the sun. So I rush them outside to give them sunlight, and forget them out there. OF COURSE a frost comes in the middle of spring and turns my plants into spinach. Not the beautiful leafy spinach but the yucky kind, you know, the kind that comes in a can. I remember that I left them outside after two or five days of ...

I spend a lot of my life in the loudest silence possible. I've been sitting in my seat for the last three hours completely enveloped in my internal conversations, thoughts, and conflicts. I had no idea how quiet I actually was until I realized that, while I was deeply involved with my own conundrums or dreams, I would not say one word outwardly for hours on end. This is not necessarily a bad thing, on the contrary sitting in silence can help you unravel your day. Sometimes I wonder though if, in my silence, I am creating more destruction to my healing than rebuilding. To figure this out I saw no other choice but to.... TRY AN EXPERIMENT 🤔 I keep a journal of my thoughts and feelings. I do this to figure out on my bad days what triggers or activities took place to bring about a not so good day. I also do it to assess situations that I could have handled better and write down about 5 choice responses to have fresh at the forefront of my mind for the next confrontation. I kept trac...

Close your eyes. Breathe in deeply through your nose and release it. Do this a couple of times just paying attention to the back of your eye lids or how good the deep breaths feel. Now open your eyes. Does the world seem different? I've been told that taking time for yourself is like creating a new beginning. Every time you do something for yourself it's like the world starts over and you're allowed to hope again. Self-care is something I've been researching for the past year. As a teacher it's imperative to the profession to rejuvenate yourself for fear of succumbing to the ear piercing, nails on chalkboard peril that awaits you. Self-care was a luxury I couldn't afford back in February. I understood the importance of taking time for myself but never did it. Any more I have to make time for myself or I become easily irritated, sensitive, and just childish. Childish you say?? Yes! That kind of childish where you're sitting on the couch, looking around with t...

Have you ever felt like you're being attacked? Every time I feel like I'm on a good path doing the right thing SOMETHING happens. You know what I'm talking about? You wake up and decide it's a new day, a new you. This is the day you're gonna be nice to random strangers to spread joy. You get on the highway to go to work and someone cuts you off and proceeds to go 5 miles under the speed limit. Your new day, new you turns into word vomit toward someone else who made a vast judgmental error. In the moment it all felt so right and then five minutes later guilt washes over you and you realize your good deeds were washed away in one fluid moment. So often I view change as a perpetually positive thing. If I just do x, y, or z then my life will be complete and I'll be joyful all the time. I'm writing this blog to remind us that choosing the right path may be the first step but choosing to stay on the right path is a battle. Don't get me wrong, the right path do...

Before you freak out and ask yourself, "Why did she put family in quotes?!" Dun, dun.....Duuuuuuunnn!, and come up with a million theories as to the purpose behind it; I'll start by explaining. Everyone in this world has a good family or can have access to a good family. Family isn't always defined by blood relation. When you read this blog entry and think of your family, I want you to think of the people who support you the most. The people that you go to when your world is falling apart, again, and they take your tears and your mess and they help you scrub away all of the cobwebs that seem to have a hold on your clear mindset. The people who take you back into their arms a million times when you've messed up and they still love you and they still want to be a part of your life. I'm talking about those people. Those are my family. If you don't have people like this in your life yet, please don't give up, it took me 28 years to discover these people in...

You know those memes about basic women with their one dish of Fettuccine Alfredo? Well....that's me. I lure men in with my feminine wiles and one signature dish of Fettuccine Alfredo. By the time they realize I can only cook five things and am not as chill as I pretend to be, they're hooked. Now that I have the title "wife" I feel like this is a HUGE part of my millennial life that needs to be more adulty. I need more than 5 dishes to feel like I've earned this title. So I called my mommy to render aid. You may remember her as the woman who walks into the room and a hundred angel choruses sing because she's the picturesque view of everything perfect. Yes, I called in... the BIG GUNS. There are three recipes I've been able to learn in the past couple of weeks. Baking was the main priority as I love to bake but I want to venture past cake and brownie mixes from boxes. I've baked banana bread, coffee cake, and Oreo balls. All three have turned out reall...

Let me start this entry by saying a hard and fast truth about myself. I am a huge, beyond abnormal, weenie. When it comes to animals, people, or even inanimate objects I am completely hypersensitive. So when I tell you that I tried fishing and shooting guns please understand it was catch and release and I fired guns at targets in a shooting range. Yes!! I went fishing! So let me level with you about this hobby. I used worms and that was...interesting. Putting them on the hook was hard. Worms are squishy and change shape so easy and a small part of me was terrified they would slip into my nail bed and kill me. Okay... I'm being deeply dramatic! But, it was so hard to put them on the hook and not do a shuffling dance every time. I even tried giving the worms a pep talk like, "Okay, I know this isn't fun and I'm really sorry about this but we can do this. NOOOO!! Don't do that (as they wriggle from my hand). You're not being a team player right now Mr. Worm....