A post Lenten update

Well, as many of you know that I decided to give up yelling for Lent. I kind of thought I was crazy, but I really wanted to do it. I will say that the first week was the most difficult. I caught myself several times and slipped twice. After the first week passed, it definitely became easier.

It's about 2 weeks post Easter and have I started yelling again? Yes, I have yelled some. I can honestly say that the hardest week was the one immediately following Easter. I failed many times in that week. My trigger during that particular week seemed to be hormonal, which has always been one for me.

What have I done to eliminate/reduce yelling?

1. I stop and take a deep breath. It sounds silly, but sometimes just taking the time to breathe before you respond can totally change the way you respond to a situation.

2. I started eliminating stressors in my life. In my case, my stressors were directly related to be over committed. It hasn't happened overnight, but I'm prayerfully eliminating things.  Many of these things won't actually change until the next school year, but knowing change is around the corner has been helpful.

3. Making sure that I eat breakfast. I will admit that I am a horrible breakfast eater. I know that it is a terrible habit. I'm still not perfect on this one, but I know that low blood sugar and hunger are definite triggers for me. I'm also trying to add in a high protein snack during my mid day crash.

4. Trying to reduce my distractions AKA apple products. This is pretty hard because I try to keep my phone on me all day, so it is really easy to pick it up and start playing on Facebook or Instagram.  I love reading blogs and researching and having my iPhone at my fingertips makes it really easy to do just that. However, by not using it as much during the day, I don't snap at my children nearly as much.

5. Offer grace rather than anger. To myself. To others. Everyone deserves grace. Again, I'm nowhere near perfect, but it is a start. During that breath that I'm taking, I try to ask myself if I'm showing grace in my reaction.

6. Getting more sleep. Because I'm a night owl, I often stay up way too late. My burst of energy comes after dinner time. My kids aren't super early risers, but they usually wake up between 7:30-8:00 am. I'm making an effort to get in bed by 11:00pm and allow myself 8 hours of sleep.  When I'm awake until 2:00 am and waking 6 hours later, it catches up to me quickly. I can assure you that sleepyhead Alicia is grouchy and snarky. Also, the more I research, the more I think my sleep issues are hormonal...which brings me to my next point.

What else am I going to do?

I'm going to make some dietary changes. I had gone gluten free with my entire family last year and slowly started introducing it after about 6 months. I realize now that I really felt better when I wasn't consuming gluten. I'm also going to slowly cut out caffeine and sugar. This is going to be really difficult. I'm going to start in about two weeks, when I don't have as many early morning obligations. After doing some research, I think these three steps will help with my hormonal issues that cause so many mood swings for me. I have never officially been diagnosed with thyroid issues, but I have almost every single symptom of hypothyroidism and borderline TSH levels. I've been researching how to heal it with dietary changes and praying this will help the out of whack hormonal issues I deal with regularly. It also seems as if adrenal fatigue and hypothyroidism go hand in hand. Honestly, even if these are not issues, changing my diet won't hurt me at all. I don't expect this to be an easy change or a quick fix. I'm more focused on long term healing with these dietary changes.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20
19 Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, 20 for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.

So there you have it. God really blessed me during this Lenten season. I truly feel that ending my Lenten journey with the Walk to Emmaus was such fabulous timing. It really gave me an opportunity to re-focus and re-prioritize. For my friends who dove into this challenge with me, I'd love to hear your feedback. What was hard for you? What changes did you make?

Being a Husband and my stay at home Wife

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 Back nearly 7 years ago, when we started this blog, it was our family blog and we both posted. We posted pretty infrequently and when posting was done, it was done by me. So by default, it became my blog. My husband had some words from his heart that he wanted to share and asked that I post it on "my" blog.  And if anyone reading it, wants to talk to him about the subject, he welcomes it! So, I welcome my first guest blogger, Chris Holbrook :)

I will always remember the conversation. It was a shock, I disagreed, promised to pray about it, didn’t…but God had a plan.

Just after Harrison was born, we moved back into Alicia’s parent’s house because of the debt we had accrued. So, we were living virtually rent free, I had a company car, so no gas expenses, free childcare, no utilities, and we were in debt up to our eyeballs. Dual income and no expenses along with the help of Alicia’s parents, we were able to knock the debt out quickly. Then we get pregnant.

We were in the living room and Alicia turns to me and say’s, “Chris, I want to stay home with the babies.” I look at her and react as the loving nurturing husband I was at the time, “umm, I don’t see how that can happen”. We discuss her needing to be home with the kids, and how ever since Harrison was born her heart was at home. I heard her, I listened… truly I did; but I had seen the numbers, I knew what my income was. I knew what our debt was. It just didn’t add up.

We ended the conversation that night on completely different sides of the fence. Her heart needed to be home. My reasoning didn’t see a way it could happen. I agreed to at least consider it, and pray asking for guidance. Now, just a quick side note, at the time, my prayer life was virtually non-existent, and when I said I would pray about it, it was my way to say, “Ok, I hear you, but I don’t agree, and I really need you off my back about this”. Sensitive, I know. It’s cool though, God didn’t need me to pray, He had a plan.

Alicia continued to pray and seek opportunities to allow her to make the change. I continued to avoid the subject and continue to see no hope of this ever happening. Still, still had a plan.

Months went by, bills were paid off, and I began to see some hope to this. Trusting Alicia would go back to work if times got tough, I had found the financial stability I needed to agree. This whole staying home thing was a good idea, I mean, I  was starting to enjoy the idea of coming home to my family rather than running around picking everyone up and having fast food on the drive home. However, something inside of me still didn’t warm up to the idea because I was afraid it would fail.

Then Kadie was born, Alicia had plenty of maternity leave, so weeks passed before we had to actually say we were doing this. I finally DID pray, and felt as peace about the whole situation, something I had yet to have since the conversation was brought up. She called Unum, resigned, and we began our lives as a single income family.

Now, I’m not going to go into every detail of what has happened over the course of the last four years to make it all happen because it’s not that important. Just know, we now have our own house, we have a second car, we eat well; and most importantly we are happy. All without Alicia having a full time job. Yes, we still have financial difficulties, but not anything we can’t handle. Yes, we work our tails off, but it’s worth it and I spend way more time with my family now than I did before.

Alicia is able to stay with the children, teach them, play with them, be with them. They have their mommy with them all day, and that makes everyone happy. Although I’m not home during the day, I feel more a part of everyone’s lives than I ever did because I’m just a phone call away. Everything is great.

Then 2012, Harrison is diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. The testing came after constant problems at home, and looking back, also problems at school. We start seeing little “quirks” in his behavior and noticing how traditional schooling might not be the best fit for him. We start looking at options, and through a ton of prayer, have decided to home school him starting this summer. Once again God has a plan.

Had we not decided for Alicia to stay home years ago when we could afford it, there is NO way we could or would make the jump now. God’s timing had us making that decision years ago when we felt it was a good move. He knew Harrison, He made him perfectly, and He gave that awesome little boy to us to be his parents. God knew we would want the best for him, and through prayer, we realize right now, homeschooling is what is best for him.

As I look back, I see my screw-ups, my lacks, my weakness, and through it all, I see His strength, His perfect timing, and His Glory shining through our story. Praise be to God!