100 Days of Grief

"It's all about finding the calm in the chaos." -Donna Karan I'm not gonna lie.  It's been difficult to get here.  The last couple days have been...turbulent.  I was seriously on cloud nine the last post and I felt great and optimistic.  Now, I still don't doubt that things are going to be okay, it's just the exhaustion of doing all the things wears on you.  I am enjoying it, but I'm tired and it's hard to keep giving when your bucket is empty. Since I've been teaching school to the kids I rarely get time to myself.  I haven't really got any consistent studying in the scriptures and my prayers have been spotty at best.  I can tell a difference.  I'm more snappy.  I'm easier to get upset and I just feel...not right.  I'm not sure what the word is to describe it.  I told a friend that I need to spend more time strengthening myself through prayer and scriptures because I'm not a good teacher and I'm not a good ...

"May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears." -Nelson Mandela Today was an amazing day.  I have to be honest, I've been pretty nervous about the idea of having kids be home and doing school.  I knew that Henry wouldn't be getting as much as he would while at school even if his teacher assigns things.  And Hannah needs to be busy.  Her little brain is crazy smart and she does well when it's busy.  I was a little daunted with the idea of trying to teach Henry so he doesn't fall behind and trying to keep Hannah busy.   But today was amazing!  My mom sent me this schedule that she found from a scary mommy post that had a schedule set out for your kids.  Saturday I spent a good portion of the day trying to decide how to make that schedule work for us as well as what we should work on that went along with what Henry's teacher already had going.  It all came together and I was actually really excited to teach Henry about s...

"She walks by faith and dwells in hope." We live in crazy times!  A couple of blog entries ago I was so fearful and scared of everything was happening but honestly the last week I've felt nothing but peace.  It's been amazing.  I feel like this week I've felt the spirit so strongly.  It has been a huge blessing.  And I've seen so many blessing in my life.  I truly feel joyful in it.  I've been thinking over the last couple days about how lately I feel like I have to push myself to get here and sit down and open my book to write.  It hit me today that I needed to change something.  I love my grief book and I still open it from time to time but I'm no longer in that part of my grief.  Does that make sense?  I feel like I'm trying to force the thoughts and that doesn't feel natural or right to me.  It's hard to write about something that you aren't really feeling anymore. Having said that, I have loved sitting dow...

"Hide your eyes darling people can see your heart through them." -Unknown Today has been a whirlwind.  A good and crazy whirlwind.  So much so that I don't have it in to write it all down yet.  It's been crazy.  I will tell you more about it tomorrow but tonight I wanted to post what I shared with my relief society tonight at the relief society birthday dinner.  I'll write more about it tomorrow. It is very daunting speaking to you all.  When Koriann asked me to talk about “Finding Joy in your Journey”, in my mind I thought - are you crazy?!  But at the same time I felt peace and knew that this was something I could share.   These last few months I feel like I’ve taken a crash course on trying to find peace and joy.  I want to share with you a bit about my last few months and I ask those that have heard this story to bear with me because I want you to understand where and how I learned to find joy.  At the beg...

"An apple a day will keep anyone away, if thrown hard enough." -Unknown Today has been nice.  The kids haven't had school and we've all kind of just been chilling.  We've played legos, we did piano lessons, we read and played games.  I love days like these.  It started out a bit crazy.  Henry woke up at like 5 am and then I had a doctors appointment followed by a dentist appointment at 10:30am.  I went to the doctors appointment and realized I should probably call and cancel the dentist appointment because I'm still not able to breath out of my nose.  My dentist appointment was to get three fillings done (turns out acid from throwing up destroys your teeth).   I canceled the dentist appointment and talked with the doctor about my concerns of having hypothyroidism, anemia, and possibly having a sinus infection.  I was concerned about the hypothyroidism because when I was pregnant he noticed that my levels were really low, whi...

"If the others heard me talking out loud they would think that I am crazy.  But since I am not, I do not care." -Erenest Hemingway This cold is really taking it out of me.  I started feeling yucky last week and came home from church and slept for 4 hours.  This last week I've been taking naps most day because I know that sleep helps getting better.  But here I am a week past and I slept from 9pm last night to noon today.  And I still feel pretty yucky.  I just don't want to go to the doctor because I feel like you have more of a chance of picking up other things that just letting your body fight what you have but I'm not sure my body is handling this cold very well. Anyway, I was pretty bummed to have missed going to church today.   It's hard to try and get your kids who are 4 & 6 to understand just because you didn't make it to church today you still need to be respectful of the sabbath day.  I get it, they don't understan...

"Live your life from your heart.  Share from your heart.  And your story will touch and heal people's souls." -Melody Beattie I've had a hard time wanting to sit down today and write today.  This morning I spent close to three hours working on a short talk I'm giving at our relief society birthday party.  I'm just feeling a little worn out from that and the rest of the day.   I had a friend ask me to talk about how to find joy in our journey.  When she asked me in my mind I responded, "you've got to be kidding right?!"  I just feel like the last couple of months haven't really reflected joy but upon further reflection I've realized that these months were some of the most joyful I've felt.  When I told her I would do my best in speaking about it, I felt peace.  I feel like that peace that settled over me is confirmation that I can say what needs to be said.   I'm scared though.  I feel like the women in my ...