Tag

So my friend, Jen, tagged me in a post so I'm going to attempt to try this: 

Rules:
1. Post these rules.
2. Post a pic of yourself and then write 11 things about you/your life.
3. Answer the questions for you set in the original post.
4. Create 11 new questions and tagged people to answer them.
5. Go to their blog/Twitter to tell them you tagged them.

11 things about myself:

1. I'm a church singing, voice and piano teaching, song writing kind of girl.

2. I love being a wife and hopefully one day a mother of many children. I feel it's my purpose in life before any career.

3. I'm always up for an adventure

4. Although I'm very adventurous, I do have a fear of bees and spiders.

5. I love a nice, relaxing bath at the end of the day.

6. I love to travel to see places but I love traveling to make memories with people I care about and love that live out of town just a little more.

7. I see life differently than I used to...my goal for life is to follow God's will for me, to live simply and humbly. 

8. I live with "to do" lists and writing things down.

9. I love to read...read to learn, read to grow, and read for fun!

10. I really enjoy cooking and finding healthy versions of foods I like.

11. I really enjoy shopping but I really love getting everything on sale or with a coupon. 

Jen's questions:

1. If you could go to ANY country RIGHT NOW, where would you go? Easy...Greece!! 
2. Are you a toilet paper up or down kinda person? Creighton model says front to back
3. Fave Catholic speaker? I don't have one :( 
4. Do you like Facebook or Twitter better? Haven't gotten into Twitter so I really can't judge but I use Facebook.
5. What is one or two pieces of jewelry you wear everyday? My wedding rings and my grandmother's ring from the 1920s
6. Describe your perfect sandwich. Love me a good burger
7. Would you rather drive, fly or take a train somewhere? Fly
8. Beach or snow? Hard because I love both but I guess beach a little more than snow
9. Fave thing about your home? My bathroom and backyard
10. What do you think about tattoos? Would you get one? Don't like them...don't have one
11. If you were going to go out with your girlfriends... what would you want to do?  Dinner? Drinks? Dancing? I don't care where we'd hang out or what we do I feel like you can have fun no matter what we do...but dinner, drinks, dancing was pretty fun!

My questions:

1. Favorite book?

2. Favorite vacation spot?

3. Best childhood memory?

4. Best piece of advice?

5. What qualities are important to you in a friend?

6. Describe your happy place.

7. What is the one meal or food that is worth going "off" for?

8. Describe your style? What do you think it says about you?

9. Do you prefer small town life or city life?

10. Which Saint do you identify with the most and why?

11. Share a great healthy recipe or product.

I don't know how to tag but here it goes:

Jen @http://jumpinginpuddlesisfun.blogspot.com/

Katie @http://projectpurposefulliving.blogspot.com/

Martha @http://shinyhappycatholics.blogspot.com/

If God brings you to it, He will bring you through it

I came across this picture during my second surgery in Omaha. It's so true and something I needed to remind myself of today. During the last six years of infertility all I have done is prayed for God to guide me and if it is in His will for me to have children to lead to me to whatever I need to do to get there. It's been a long journey that is still not over. I sometimes get through harder days by repeating over and over "I trust you, God, be with me and give me the grace to get through this and if possible with a smile on my face". I truly feel that God has been guiding my path to having children and I don't know if you believe in signs but I feel Him talking to me and giving me signs of His presence everywhere. I believe that I would not have found Dr. Hilgers in Omaha if it wasn't for God. I felt His presence and love all around me while I was there for the big second surgery. I met amazing people that showed me so much love and my friends back home were showing much love and support and offering their prayers...I even woke up from surgery with a rosary taped to my hand...so my Blessed Mother was with me during the surgery. Therefore, since I know God brought me to all this...I know that He will bring me through it. Some days I feel overwhelmed by the amount of medications and vitamins I have to take. Sometimes I look at the five scars from the surgery and it reminds me of that scary time. Yesterday, I became extremely sick to my stomach with horrible pain from the antibiotics the doctor prescribed me for every cycle. I was literally up most of the night. That medication does make me sick regularly but last night was to another extreme. It makes me question internally what I'm doing and why it's hard. I question when will it end. And then somehow God reminds me. This morning I came across the above picture looking through my iPad photos and it spoke to me. God brought me to it and He will see me through it. He knows better than I know (at this point I called the doctor and told me to stop taking the antibiotics this month to give my stomach a break and try again next cycle...so here's hoping its better by then). Now, I try to live my days without complaining and instead praying but for the purpose of this blog I decided to speak about it. I try to be pleasant to be around and handle my struggles with grace...you only get one life and I don't want to live it being a drag. I want to enjoy myself and allow the virtues of faith, hope, and love to give me the grace to get through all the harder times. I truly believe that God gives us the tools to see us through it by offering those virtues to us and as I said before I'm grateful for the infertility and how it's changed me. But life is hard sometimes and for me just remembering that God will see me through it is comforting and if I look back I can see so many times He has heard my cry and somehow brought me back to a good place as He did yesterday. I had another experience with Him during adorarion on Sunday. The day before I was frustrated that I started another cycle. I had really thought it was going to happen this month and was even a few days late! So anyways,  I was trying to get to the church to practice and my friend that brought me to church said "oh just take a few minutes to say hey to Jesus" and really? Who can pass that up? Hehe...so I went and for the first time I felt Him talking to me. I was praying very negatively...typical " why? I don't understand...blah blah blah". Out of nowhere I felt like He stopped me and my thoughts shifted to "trying to make sense of it isn't important...what's important is that He will never abandon me". On top of that the readings and homily during Mass after that were about that same idea! Totally changed my perspective. Goes back to "If God brings you to it, He will bring you through it". I can really see it now...I can see how He gets me through it and reveals Himself to me in so many ways. 

21 Day Challenge

So yesterday I started my own 21 day challenge for eating right, exercising, and getting good habits in place spiritually...focusing on simplicity and peace. Why 21 days? Well I was listening to a fertility seminar and part of that seminar included a doctor that spoke about nutrition. The diet she suggested for fertility was very similar to the anti inflammation diet Dr. Hilgers told me would be best. She said that it takes 21 days to break old habits and stick with new ones. She said to get through 21 days straight of eating clean and after that it gets easier.  I'm planning on incorporating my cousin's "no thank you" method. When she was visiting me, anytime someone offered her something off her diet she would simply say "no thank you". I feel like I not only have to apply that to myself when others give me something off the diet but also with myself. When I'm tempted to go off or all of a sudden have a craving for junk, I need to tell MYSELF "no thank you...I don't want junk in my body." It's amazing to me how addicted I become to junk food. At this point I know how important it is to feed my body good clean foods..,hormone free, not processed. It's not only good for fertility but for making your body strong and able to heal itself from sickness better. So anyways, I haven't done 21 days straight yet. I've been on the diet throughout the summer on and off (mostly because of vacations) and its time for me to get healthy and get my body ready to hopefully one day nurture in a baby in my womb. I truly feel like this is going to be a crucial part of our increasing our fertility. As an added bonus putting my energy on preparing for a baby and gettin healthy takes my focus away from the fact that it hasn't happened yet. I truly feel like my purpose is to be a stay at home mom and an excellent wife to my hubby so instead of focusing on being depressed that my purpose has not been fulfilled, I'm going to focus on getting my body ready...spiritually and physically. My husband is already on board so it's time for me to stop finding excuses and start my life style change. 

So here's what I'm doing for 21 days: 

Prayer: continuing to make God my best friend and consult with Him on my choices. Living peacefully and simply knowing my best friend is also my Father in heaven and is taking care of me.

Wife: continue to be a good wife...work on not trying to take over acting like the husband and controlling everything. Be kind, gentle, humble and love my husband more than myself. 

Diet: cut out processed foods, no cow milk (unless in form of cheese), no gluten, no drinking from plastic bottles or using plastic Tupperware. No carbs at night...use only raw pure sugar at a minimum (only once a day have a piece of dark chocolate 71% cocoa). Most of the diet should be raw veggies and fruits (I don't eat fruits but I can handle the veggies).

Exercise: 30 mins of cardio and 30 mins to 1 hr of yoga or weights 

Moxa stick: I have also gone and done acupuncture for fertility and was told to heat the stick with herbs over my belly everyday and I have yet to get into that habit so I'm going to try to do that as well

Wish me luck! 

Alone time

So right now I'm in a beautiful resort in Orlando for my husband's work conference. No work, no worries, just lounging by the pool reading and evidently writing a blog. Just experiencing some good quality alone time while my husband is at the conference.

Here's my view:

Before I would have dreaded the alone time despite the fact that I'd be in a beautiful place with no where to be and not a worry in the world. Today I'm so incredibly grateful. I'm grateful to be in this amazing resort. I'm grateful that even though my hubby has a conference most of the day, I get to spend much more time with him out here than if we were both working at home. I'm just so grateful for every moment. I've been able to sit and reflect on my life from an outward perspective. I can be somewhere else and actually have time think and reenergize for the coming school year. Sometimes it's not a bad idea to step outside of your life in order to see where it can improved and if you are going in the right direction. I'm grateful for the alone time. 

On a different note, I was also able to go on a bike ride with my hubby earlier. This resort has so many activities included in the price you pay for the hotel. So we thought we'd give the bikes a try thinking it was just going to be a jogging path around the resort. It actually ended up being a 5 mile ride into some preserves and was just so beautiful. It reminds me of how happy I feel in nature. I love it. That is the one thing about living in southeast Florida is that it's basically a swamp. There's no natural fields or forests or hills. So nice to be able to experience that today. What a lovely surprise. 

There really are some good people in this world....

Lately, I've heard and frankly seen how our culture/society is heading towards a dark place. People are becoming selfish. There's this idea of having to always satisfy your emotions. For example, people have this idea that if there is ever a moment when a person at a moment is not happy in their marriage, they just go and get divorced. Immediate self gratification. Do I believe people should be happy? Of course! But I do believe that our emotions are constantly changing...our mood, hormones, even the weather can affect our emotions. I believe sometimes to truly be happy it takes an act of the will. Sometimes you have to just will it and work at it. I find that on the other side of willing it and putting work is a place of true happiness and peace. Anyways, I'm going off on a tangent. My point is people are moving away from true happiness...a lot of people are looking out for número uno. I've noticed you can't even trust doctors. People try to make a quick buck out of you. Even companies that make our food add hormones and toxins to the food to make the food last longer and cheaper to make. It so easy to see the negative in our world and miss the fact that there really are some genuinely good people as well. The more we appreciate and see those moments of God's love showing through others, the more it makes us feel like continuing to spread that love. Our actions can influence others and spread goodness. Where is this coming from? Well, I feel like ever since I began to change, I've been noticing these acts of kindness more and more where before I would have let those moments pass me by without a second thought. When I was in Omaha for my second surgery, David and I were invited into strangers' homes that have been through the same things and were shown so much love. From strangers that aren't strangers anymore. They visited me in the hospital and made me homemade soups. They offered so much support. I felt God was physically there for me throughout the entire trip through these people. These people had no reason to be so kind...the had no connections with me at all...that's God's grace. After receiving so much love I feel more like sharing that same love for others. It's a beautiful thing. How wasteful if I would have not seen the miraculous love and support I received and disregarded it. Even back home, I am so blessed to have people in my life that truly care...people that I can be myself around and not be judged...people that respect others and that do things for me without expecting anything in return...they do it genuinely out of love. I spent the day with one those people yesterday! 

Every cycle on a certain day I have to get blood work done to send to Omaha to make sure the my hormones are balanced. Today I went back to do the blood work at the same place I had my blood series (blood draws every other day for a month) done. During that time I was so grateful that they allowed me to draw blood without processing it. I ended up getting to know the lab workers and joked around with them. They should be kindness and I felt compelled to return the kindness by making them homemade cookies for the staff for Christmas and they loved it. Well I went back today and after all those months they remembered me and were so kind and supportive (apparently I'm suppose to name my future baby after one of them lol) and just genuinely happy to see me. To me, that's good people. 

None of those people I mentioned in the above stories HAD to do any of that. It's nice to witness such kindness and to see that there really are some good people in this world. There are people that think outside of themselves. The point of this blog is 1. I just felt so inspired and feel like sharing some stories of kindness 2. To encourage you to spread that love to others. Your simple actions or even your very presence of genuine goodness CAN make a difference. Don't wait to feel in a good mood. Will it. Decide to be happy and spread God's love :)

Just pray

Sounds so easy "just pray". When things are going great, when you want to kill someone, when you're having a blah day, when one of your dreams come true, when you feel blah, etc.  But when done correctly it really works. Being in that constant communication with God, I've found, has made me a much better person. He becomes this intrical part of your life...like a best friend that you can call on day or night, who will never judge you, someone that already knows your deepest secrets and silly thoughts...so there's no point in keeping anything from Him because he already knows! You can just be yourself. Most importantly I've realized that He is the only entity in your life that loves perfectly. Nobody..not your husband, parents, family members, friends, dogs...can love you perfectly like God does. That was a powerful realization for me. For a long time I think I expected certain people, especially my husband and some would say their parents, to love me perfectly. The bottom line is they are not perfect and they will make mistakes or get off their path and that's ok...I make mistakes and get off my path or have bad days...we are all here to help each other on our pilgrimage through life and  take comfort that there is one that loves us perfectly and that is God. I feel like knowing that has made me much more patient, kind, gentle, and most importantly humble and forgiving as a human being in the way I treat others, especially those nearest and dearest. This is why it's so important to pray...to keep in communication with the one that loves us perfectly, to our best friend that gives us grace when we need it and always loves us. I love to say prayers of gratitude throughout the day...especially when things are NOT going my way. It really puts life in perspective at a moment when I'm weak. If I have a baby shower to go to or someone announces they are pregnant that I'm not too close too, I pray for God to give me the grace to get through those moments and to place me back into a positive, hopeful place...I gotta get back on track because I can easily sink myself into a "why them and not me...all I yearn for is to have my children..what is my purpose in life if not to have kids..." And that can go on and on. I don't want to be there...it doesn't serve me. I want to be in a place of trust, hope, and peace. The bottom line is I want to be happy for others...I wouldn't wish this upon anyone. But the hurt that it hasn't happen for us is still there and the only thing I've found that truly gives me peace to just to stop and pray. God will give me what I NEED not WANT to get though those moment. I'm a much happier person now and it shows when I forget to pray and start to drift I start to feel more and more negative emotions. 

I've also struggled over the years with keeping God at the center of my marriage. The intention has always been there but I hadn't figured it out really and truly until recently. It goes along with what I was saying in the previous paragraph. In my mind now I make an intimate part of my life by thinking of Him as a best friend. It works the same in a marriage..He is literally another person in our marriage. He is the core of marriage now and unites us. We not only make decisions about our lives between the two of us but now we actually will ask God through prayer...any choice we have to make we run it by God first and ask Him to let us know in our hearts what we should do. If one of us is being out of line with the other we tell them to basically take a time out and talk to God who is the other person in our marriage and ask Him for His opinion. We pray before or after we are intimate, when we have a hard day at work we pray before we talk to the other person. God is not just a prayer before bed...now He is literally becoming part of our marriage. Maybe it sounds cray cray but it has brought our marriage to a whole new level of peace and happiness that we never knew existed. 

So bottom line here...just pray.

You're never "done"

Here's my disclaimer: I treat my blog like a journal. I don't think too much about grammar, sometimes I type fast on the iPad and it autocorrects wrong, run on sentences, typos...the works. I will definitely try to do my best but my objective with this blog is to share my thoughts and my journey through life...to simply be me.

So I haven't written any more blog since May because I didn't think people would be interested. I started writing in a journal on my iPad instead, however I feel inspired to start up again. So here it is...

 I feel that I have grown so much over the last couple of years and I'm not done growing. You are never "done" growing and learning...that's probably one of the first "secrets" to life that I have learned. Being complacent with where you are in your spiritual and emotional growth is when a person stops becoming the best they can be...we should always humble ourselves in realizing that we will never be perfect in this life...this life is a pilgrimage to heaven...it is a constant growing experience. For example, have you ever heard people say this to or about their spouse or something to this extent? "I don't know how this is possible but I feel like I love you deeper today than yesterday but yesterday I felt liked I loved you at the deepest level". That's how I, personally, began to understand the concept of always learning and growing...you always be better than yesterday and grow deeper especially when it comes to my relationship with God. I'm so grateful now in my life for everything good and bad. I'm even grateful for the struggle of trying to having children. This experience, though probably THE hardest trial of my life, has led me to grow in faith, to work on myself, to find peace, and to be ok with not always being in control. Its like...you hear people say these expressions of being peaceful and letting go of control, etc, but it never sank in or possibly I never truly understood those concepts until I had to deal with this ordeal of trying to have a baby. I've been through stages throughout these 6 years. I've bumped my head against the wall many times...I've been depressed, angry, I pulled away from God, I allowed myself fall apart every time my period arrived, I felt like a failure...like my body was failing me...I would try to do everything possible and do everything right but it wouldn't happen and then see people that get pregnant like nothing. Every one of those stages was a bump...sometimes a huge hump or even a mountain to cross over during my journey but like I said I'm so grateful now because at some point during those 6 years I started to pray. I just said I'll try it and my prayer was literally "God, please let me get pregnant". That's it. But I didn't know it then but that selfish prayer was the tiny opening that God needed to work in me. Whether I knew it or not I was letting Him in and little by little my prayers started to change, I was praying more often, I started making friends with people that helped me grow more in faith because I was open and wanting to learn more and grow more. It's been that way ever since...one revelation has led to another. I still haven't gotten pregnant but there's a peace within me now. I know that God is taking care of me. I know that He knows better and I know that He has been at work with my petition ever since the first time I prayed "God, please let me get pregnant". As I said in a previous post, He has led me to good Catholic people that have supported us through this time of waiting and struggle. He led us to good Catholic doctors in Omaha, NE that have found and fixed many physical issues that have been in the way. It hasn't been an easy road with surgeries, blood tests, and medications that make me feel sick; but I go through it and pray through the tough times knowing that God knows better than I know. I've become a different person with different ideals about life. I now aim to keep God first and surrender my hopes and dreams to Him, I don't aim to be a career woman but to be a good wife to my husband now and hopefully one day a stay at home mom. I want peace, humility, and simplicity in my life. I've been able to work through how to deal with my family which was hard for me before. What beautiful gifts and perspective to gain from not being able to conceive.  If I were to get pregnant right now I would be a completely different parent than what I would have been if I would have gotten pregnant 6 years ago...even 3 years ago. I'm all over attachment parenting now..lol! 

Part of growing and learning is figuring out that you're never done and though I feel like I have turned a very important corner in my life, I feel like its only beginning. I have now been reading so many books to gain more insight and knowledge. For example, I got married 7 years ago. I grew up in a home that didn't set a very good example for marriage and family life. I knew I wanted to be different and learned basically what I didn't want to do, but now I'm realizing that I need to learn how to have the marriage that God teaches us about. What is the right way or at least a better way? I don't think David and I did too bad but we didn't know how amazing it really could be until we started to read and learn and open our hearts to what it could be. I want to do the same with parenting. When I get pregnant one day, I already have tons of books on my amazon wish list that I want to read about to make sure I learn to be the parent I want to be.