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Diary

Diary

Is this thing still on? Ending a hiatus.

08/15/2024

I have finally updated my portfolio after so many years of not updating it. But guess what? A lot of my work is on a hard drive that I cannot locate and so a lot of my work that I really would like to show I can’t seem to find.

It’s no secret that I took a hiatus for probably six years at a minimum, and I have been here and there briefly. Sporadically you may say. After my second pregnancy, I was restricted to bed rest but I just couldn’t focus on work for some reason. Or my online life. And of course, after I had my baby and covid lockdown happened, it was just even more sporadic.

Honestly, I’ve been very spacey and flakey since 2010 when I gave birth to my first daughter. The two years following that beautiful life-changing event, my shaky marriage to my “high school sweetheart” finally ended in the worst way I could’ve anticipated. The blind love and trust of youth is so wonderful to experience, but it makes it difficult to see when things are unhealthy or toxic. Unfortunately I did a lot of things to just get through and it started to feel like I was just a problem no matter what situation I was in. I started to feel I was unlovable.

This has sent me on a journey to build a life that I truly want and choose which I never felt I was able to do before in my life. So since around 2012-2014 when some more extremely traumatic things occurred in my life (some of which being an emergency life saving surgery, the death of my one stability: my cat I lived with since age 11, and some things I can’t even mention here) I decided that it was time. It was time for me to face all of the horrors that I was hiding from. I decided that it was time. It was time for me to face all of the horrors that I was hiding from. That I was stuffing down. Sometimes I imagine writing a memoir, or even a fiction book about some of the things that I experienced in those years, but because I have had my daughters, I’m not necessarily sure that would be good for them to have access to at these ages. Or probably any ages. Maybe one day I will write under a pen name, but I have so many large projects that I am already behind on that. I just can’t imagine adding that to the list.

Diary

I Wished You a Happy Valentine’s Day

02/16/2024

It’s Aquarius, Valentine, Birthday season! It never seems like it will get here and then it’s gone in an instant. I am always ecstatic when the stores are full of pink, hearts, and saccharine-sweet, romantic kitsch.

Making valentine’s gifts for my class as a kid was always very enjoyable for me, then it was something I shared with Colette, and now I share it with Bea. It’s so fun and cute. I am hyper vigilante about hoarding so sometimes I toss a lot of old cards and Valentine’s cards are the ones I wish I’d saved. I would love to find some of mine featuring various 80s and 90s cartoons and frame a collection of them!

As a side note, I’m really into taking my odd, candid shots again. I’m constantly doing this just as I did in my youth with my Olympus digital camera. Funny crops and non-rehearsed expressions. I prefer awkward candids to posed photos.

Diary

A Tiny Trip Inside my Home

12/18/2023

What once was a family office and a place my husband hung more of his art collection, is slowly becoming the reptile/spider/bug room. We no longer use a family desk as everyone has their own desks and computers these days and it’s such an odd-shaped room.

My bedroom one of my favorite places in my home to cocoon. I love chilling in bed on my laptop and looking outside at the cute neighborhood below. We have 2 windows and a huge balcony off of our bedroom so it is filled with natural light. It’s best when the sun is shining so the prisms make little rainbows everywhere! I have prisms in every sunny window of my house~ they make me feel so happy.

What is something in your home that really makes you happy?

Diary

I Wish I Knew What to Say to You

05/17/2023

I often have taken brief breaks from blogging but never did I just stop like I have now.

I guess blogs aren’t even really that relevant anymore? Unless you’re directly searching for information on Google or have a favorite that you’ve just continued to read through the years, that is.

Maybe that’s how you found me, once upon a time.

Maybe you found me long before I had a blog and creating cute, personal websites was the fun thing to do online. How I miss those days. The early days of the internet are what I think of when I hear elder folks reference “the good old days.”

Maybe you didn’t even find me (or my blog) at all… or maybe I found you.

Whatever the reason you keep visiting, buying, supporting: thank you. Always.

Diary Visual Splendor

Our Anniversary Weekend Away in the Country

10/24/2021

To briefly preface this, this is the first time I’ve been away from Beatrice overnight. She’s two and a half. We decided, since it’s coronavirus life and mainly because we have never been apart, that we would just go to the country and stay in our cabin for our yearly anniversary trip. Our cabin is on a little secluded hill in a next to a small pond. We’ve never been there without our baby.

One of my anniversary gifts!

When we go to the cabin we like to wear our “cabin clothes” or what we deem as a country style. LOL. My style is mostly the same except I have a Hello Kitty camping themed backpack that I use and I’ll wear a pastel flannel occasionally.

While out in the forest, I found Turkey Tail, a healthy mushroom you can use to make tea. I made a spiced tea with it when we got home. David’s was black tea and mine was green.

We rode our 4-wheeler that we got exclusively because we wanted fun, silly things to do at our cabin, and found a beach on the White River. The river is not super clean near cities. I wouldn’t say it’s safe to swim in even away from them. It’s sad. But also confusing why when traveling on dirt roads in the country we found a big sandy beach completely undisturbed!! We relaxed here for awhile. I always bring snacks and things to do. It was perfect.

It seemed so long and so short at the same time but I know that I needed the break. We even went to a town about an hour away (Bloomington) and ate at one of my favorite restaurants, Chow Bar, and a cute coffee/juice place called Soma that I featured in the past.

At Chow Bar, I asked if I could order sesame balls and they were happy to make them off-menu (they used to have them and all of these pretty buns and bao on their amazing buffet) and I was elated).

My husband used to live here. Bloomington is another nice city-ish place to live in Indiana. It feels like a cute district of Indianapolis only it’s over an hour away,  but it’s not like an acutal city. The State college is there. A great thing is they are very forward-thinking, and there are a lot of cute shops and diverse restaurants, that even Indy doesn’t have. Sadly, of course, it looks as though coronavirus has taken down some of the cute vintage stores there such as, Cactus Flower.

One of the cutest parts of our trip was that we had to bring our, not one, but TWO dogs with us to the cabin. One of them is new to the family so she cries while I’m away. I’ve started taking them everywhere. Walking them around the forest and being surrounded by them at night was definitely a highlight. Even now I’m writing as I drink my coffee in the forest watching the sun come up and while, on each side, a small Cavalier King Charles Spaniel is sleeping quietly.

Design Your Life Diary

Show Me How to Be

01/09/2020

There are some people who look at themselves and don’t see the need to work on anything. They’re awesome just they way they are. I’m not one of those people.

I’m a person who is always searching myself to see what I need to work on to make myself a more loving, compassionate, caring human being. I’m pretty sure that started when I was 15.

That year, I prayed and asked God to show me how others saw me. And I hated what I saw as a result of that prayer. I was harsh and extremely judgmental. I was defensive and quick to bite back. I wasn’t well liked (probably even by my fiends) and it wasn’t hard to see why.

There were hurts and wounds that had caused that behavior, but I was responsible for how I allowed those hurts to effect how I treated others. Hurting people Tend to hurt other people. I didn’t want to be a source of that kind of hurt towards another person.

I’ve prayed that same prayer many times over the years. I’ve been surprised that I didn’t really have anything revealed to me. I’ve been listening and searching and couldn’t see the specific areas I felt I needed to work on.

This past week, I’ve had a couple people tell me some very sweet things. That I deal gently with others feelings. That I am knowledgeable but not pushy in how I share the things I’ve learned. That my stories I share are full of love. The past few days I just kept thinking, “Wow! I really wish those things about me were true! I’m going to try hard this year to live into those things. Try to really be THAT person!”

Bumbling around my mess of a Christmas break house, thinking on these things, trying to live into them so that I don’t allow the anxiety of mess to make me snappy at the family that has to live with me, I felt God ever so sweetly nudging me with thoughts. Thoughts that said, “You asked how others see you. Why do you think that has to be that they see hard things?” And my response is, of course, “because I too am beautifully flawed!! There is always something to improve on!!”

For the second time in as many weeks, He pressed on me that I only see him as a God who corrects when He is a God who loves us just as we are. That He sees me as uniquely and wonderfully created. That as my father he sees me with pride at who I’ve grown to be. Loving me just as I am. And that I have to accept that sometimes that’s a gentle, loving space.

It’s so much easier for me to see the good things in other people. Because I know my own thoughts and heart!! And y’all, sometimes loving people is HAAAARD!!

But today, I’m going to be gentle with my words to myself. Learn to accept the fact, that for 27 years, I’ve worked hard to bust up the hardness of my heart and let love win. To choose forgiveness over anger even when it offended my own sense of justice. I’m going to follow my own advice and let sweet words flow over me and balm my own bruised spirit.

I’m going to take those things and make them as true for my little family as they often still live with my rough edges.

Thanks for letting me share a sweet space this morning if you’re still reading my novella.

Namaste, Friends. Thank you for letting me share.

Design Your Life Diary

I’m Not Telling You About Miseducated Monday

01/02/2020

I’m not. I’m also not going to tell you about how I made a promise to myself to blog more. That if anything I should just choose a day and devote that day to blogging. Because then, at least on that day, I would be continually making new content.

No, I’m not going to tell you because I started this plan WAY BEFORE New Year and I already didn’t follow through. I don’t want you to look at me as a lazy blogger, you see. Especially because I am a very lazy blogger and I intend to change.

What is your New Years resolution? Don’t give yourself a lot. Don’t make a list. Nothing is more off-putting than an endless list of ways you expect yourself to change. No. Choose 1-3 things you plan to focus on improving about yourself or your life this year. Do that. Don’t “Lose 20 lbs eating healthy and exercising at least 5 times a week” yourself. Don’t “Stop eating sugar, drinking wine, and smoking” yourself.

Personally, that is one sure way I will not succeed. We have to make it easier. You can always add another goal after you achieve the first one. You don’t need an endless list of things you must do to accept yourself or feel accomplished. No.

My 2020 Resolutions:

  1. Blog on Mondays
  2. Make a gratitude list of at least 5 items each day.
  3. Be more open hearted. Tell people what they mean to you more often. Love more. Judge less.

What is on your list? What is your main focus of self-growth this year?

Happy New Year!

All of the cute diner food is from Baby’s which used to be Talbott Street, our favorite club! Check it out this year!

Baby’s Indy

2147 N Talbott Street
Indianapolis, Indiana 46202

Diary

My Cesarian – The Most Intimate Moment of my Life

04/17/2019

A cesarian, or c-section, is usually not the first thought people have when they imagine an intimate, romantic birth. I have to admit, it didn’t seem like a possibility to me. In fact, I wasn’t prepared for that. I was insecure. My husband’s previous children were born at home, something I’m unable to consider in my situation. It’s easy for us mothers to feel less than in so many ways.

The three of us in March [by Ashley Louise Photography]

Our pregnancy was riddled with constant appointments, ultrasounds, bedrest and weekly shots he gave me. I was on medications to calm preterm labor. It was very restrictive but worth it to carry to term. We were all in shock that I actually made it to my surgery date!

I arrived at the hospital with my husband at 5:30am and waited anxiously for my paperwork to be prepared. To claim I was worried is an understatement

Shortly after we followed the nurse to the back of the hospital and up the elevator to a triage room for me to be stabbed with an IV 4 times. One of those 4 times medicine was even injected into my arm, not my vein. As my arm bulged in pain I felt my anxiety intensify. Luckily the shift changed and the anesthesiologist was able to get my vein. Whew.

My husband was given what they call a bunny suit to get ready for surgery. I was taken back ahead of him and told to sit on the edge of the bed. I was told to hold the pillow and lean against the nurse while I get my spinal tap. I was full of fear at this point but I tried to relax.

The room was SO BRIGHT and sterile. The lights above looked like huge saucers waiting to take me away. A team of women peered down at me. The anesthesiologist patted me and assured me everything was going great.

The three of us in April [by Ashley Louise Photography]

I lost all feeling in my legs and panicked. I hadn’t felt that before. My first birth was an emergency at 34 weeks after I had already had an epidural so I was drugged and puking the entire time; unable to focus on my body.

My husband was brought into the room as I was feeling small moans and cries floating out of my mouth in a panic. I couldn’t control the shaking. I could feel them washing my body but they assured me I wouldn’t feel pain. I wanted to change my mind. There was not an opportunity for me to experience birth in a different way based on my genetics and my body’s struggle with pregnancy.

My husband held my face close to his, with tears in his eyes. He told me to be there with him, to focus on him. He told me it was ok, that he was with me. I stared into his eyes and I felt like we were one person. I knew we were one person. I melted into him as the moans continued to seep from my lips. Tears involuntarily poured from our eyes as he held me. It seemed to take hours and minutes and yet time wasn’t even real anymore. The only thing that was real was our oneness.

The moment we met.

My doctor said there was one last layer before the baby. I looked at the reflection and cried. I looked back at my husband and felt only his hands. They pulled her out, pulled her out of both of us. Our hearts exploded. We both were uncontrollably crying when we heard her cry, saw her tiny white body. Thats the soul who begged to be born for nearly 6 years. That’s the baby he got a vasectomy reversal for, the baby we planned to the day. The miracle baby that seemed for so many years an impossibility based on endless setbacks with my health.

They handed her to him. I was in shock. The anesthesiologist gave me something in my IV to help calm me. My shaking started to slow. I looked at her tiny face in my husband’s hands. We were all one, all three of us.

In recovery my husband was so grateful I was ok. He was focused on me. I was able to hold my daughter and breastfeed her, something I hadn’t been able to do upon completion of my first birth. I felt whole again.

Our first meeting, recovery, and our first walk~

We had a new understanding, a new experience. He told me we were one, that he felt what I felt. That he was so scared. That he had never experienced anything so intimate, intense, or beautiful in his entire life. I hadn’t either.

A home birth is natural, a vaginal birth is assumed, a cesarian can be the most intimate experience of your life. I know it was for us and I’m incredibly grateful for my body.

My girls, Colette Fawn and Béatrice Fawn.
Diary

I’m Dreaming of You

02/16/2018

My husband is so cute when he’s sleeping.
He talks in his sleep, you see.
Tonight I asked him why he was moving and he said “I’m just waiting on you to come get me. I miss you.”
In the past (he hates coffee -even the smell- and I love it) he told me he wants to know how much the coffee is so he can buy it for his wife.
I’m always wondering what he’s doing in his sweet, mundane dreams.

Meanwhile, in my dreams, I’m flying, moving to some alternate universe, swimming with my daughter while we have mermaid fins, finding rooms full of fairies and shimmery blue butterflies, and eating desserts because I know I can eat as much as I want and not gain weight.
I have noticed these days in my mundane (and stress) dreams I seem to often be moving.
I’m moving and arranging all of the kids’ bedrooms.
I love arranging a house and also going through the things the past owners left.
In a recent stress dream I was moving and I was rushing through throwing all of these flower decorations away that the owner left.
It was so kitschy cute, every single item was covered in roses and pastels.
However I was so upset that they were not my own things in my home that I decided to just toss them compulsively.
Then I realized that I probably should have notified the owner.
Oops.

Iridescent Shower Curtain from Urban Outfitters

Diary

A Story of Divorce, Custody and New Life

12/28/2015

I’ve been thinking about things a lot recently with the new year coming up and have decided it’s time to talk. I had hinted and implied before that I would someday tell the story of the hell I went through around 3.5 years ago, why I went away and why I avoided getting personal when I came back. You always love my personal posts, to my surprise, so I figure it’s time.

I’m going to tell this in a sort of way that does not publicly shame anyone (except maybe myself) or create monsters out of humans. First and foremost I am a mother to my dream come true, fairytale daughter and I share her with her father who was my high school sweetheart and who is now my ex-husband and with her stepdad who is the other love of my life. She is truly magical and you can only understand if you’ve met her and spent time with her… everyone she meets feels her light and says so. She is really a beautiful and special girl. An old soul. She is of the utmost importance always.

pregnant woman rainbow deer

Around 5 years ago my first marriage started taking a turn for the worst. I remember watching an episode of Intervention that explained why these adult children’s older parents were so bad for each other, why they shouldn’t be together because they enabled each other and it really startled me. How could they enable each other so much that they could never be out of that rut or get healthy together? How sad would it be to be married to your best friend and you realize you’re bad for each other? And you have children already?

We had our issues as everyone does and we shouldn’t have gotten married at such a young age after only dating each other and never living on our own. It’s all true. I think we were naive as most 20-year-olds are. But I thought I had what everyone wanted. I didn’t have to “date” and I didn’t have to be broken-hearted and go through meaningless relationships. I was always with my best friend and even though we fought and had so many problems we were able to ignore a lot of them and just get through together.

Until around four years ago when we didn’t and couldn’t. I didn’t know why but I was severely depressed and couldn’t find the light. I had this beautiful one-year-old baby I was spending my days with and a nice home and I could not get out of it and I felt like it was all my fault. I would pretend, I would make her fancy toddler meals, have tea parties and art class with her, take her to the park, I would sing with her and cuddle her. I still felt a hurt deep in my heart and I felt alone. I felt my husband didn’t love me or even like me. I felt like he never did and I just always pretended he did. And I was sick. Very sick. We tried a few couple’s counseling sessions, therapy, medicine, we tried it all and we would be ok together for a bit but then we would have an explosive falling out.

We couldn’t do that with a baby. We had our baby, the light of our life and we could not exist like we had for so long anymore. So in desperation I checked myself into a hospital (still feeling like everything was my fault and if I could just be better he would be happy with me and I would feel happy) and when I was released the castle shattered. I guess it was too late. It was horrible for everyone. He left with my baby, I lost my mind. I couldn’t get her because it was illegal for me to go to the home he stayed in when the owner did not want me there and the police said it had to be done through court. I had only been apart from her overnight once before this. It all seemed insane and I was so lost. I went to find a custody lawyer and all the depressed moments in therapy and hopelessness in my years of words were recorded in black and white. All of my medicines, any drug I ever used. I was always honest about my inner most flaws in therapy. I was depressed. I thought it was all me. I thought I would never be right again. I lost everything I’d ever loved and fell into a rabbit hole of despair.

Next came a three year divorce and custody battle. Feet were dragged, dates were moved, forms were lost. I was so ready to be done with this and it seemed every step we made we took fifteen steps back. Something else would come up or happen. Another delay. And another. Once the judge decided to leave town so all dates were moved. I’m not kidding, the court system is this flawed. Meanwhile I don’t see my daughter but every other weekend and the hope is getting smaller and smaller that it would change. I was such a trusting person that I never gathered any evidence to prove my innocence or the guilt of another. The only way I can explain it is I believed everything he had ever said and I knew he would never lie to me. I had years of therapy evidence against me about my own hopelessness and despair. The photos I took when I lost my mind after they left, the words I wrote when I felt violated. My tweets, status updates, videos. It’s so easy to blab things online that are inappropriate and think it will never haunt you, DON’T do it. It will never go away and it will always haunt you if ever your integrity is up for question. My phone was stolen and my private conversations with my best friend were used. I had years of evidence of using bandaids to cover the deepest wounds and those two months of nothingness enticed me to fall apart in the public eye. I had nothing to prove what was happening behind closed doors for all those years and so I could only take the weight all onto myself. I had no family. I had no strength, no self-love or confidence. It had been destroyed over a long period of time.

In the following years I got completely sober of alcohol, smoking and depression/anxiety medication. In those three court-riddled years I built a relationship with a man who had always been a trustworthy friend and someone I looked up to. In this relationship horrible pains were also experienced. I’m not sure anyone knows what it’s like to be in a relationship with a married woman who is grieving the loss of her family and a marriage to someone else. I’m sure it’s tough and I’m sure it almost magnifies the atmosphere for attacks from fears, lies and the darkness. We faced obstacles through this choice we made to be together during the divorce and other obstacles for simply living (such as when he got a concussion and severe amnesia you can read about here, my 17-year-old soul mate Hobbes passing, my emergency surgery, etc).

As I got stronger and had more bonding time with my child I found I had an opportunity to build something I had always dreamed of, something better and more beautiful than I knew I could have before. My partner had three young children who took to Colette instantly. They were all like long lost siblings within a year. Colette was a baby and because they loved me and always wanted a complete family and a little sister they felt the universe had also answered their prayers. We became the family we never had. I hear it takes around 3-5 years to fully blend a family. With young children I believe it can be much easier, especially when you have those children every other week together. We made sure we were blended before we talked of marriage.. and that the hurts of the past were healed.. and on October 25, 2015 we got married. My maid of honor was Mary (11, my new daughter), my flower girl was Colette (5, my biological, magical daughter), my best man was William (9, my new son) and my ring bearer was Samson (6, my other new son). Suddenly the right things looked like a puzzle that snapped together perfectly.

mylove

How could we have been so blind all those years? I don’t know. I just think my ex and I deep down knew we were bad for each other but we wanted to stay together because we had only dated each other and the history was enormous. In doing that we only hurt ourselves and each other in different ways. We had planned our whole lives, had a beautiful child, had so many opportunities. We were best friends and we had a lot of good times through those years. His mom was like my mom; I really grew up with him. We just were toxic together. We were changing a lot and having growing pains and wanting different things. I see that now so obviously.. apart we do the things we need to do, we do the right things, we put ourselves last. Together we couldn’t do the right things, we couldn’t find the right path, we could only find paths to destruction and hurt in our own unique ways and our daughter didn’t deserve that. She deserved us to be happy apart rather than sick together.

Today we are, she has two families that love her more than anything in the world who would do anything for her. I don’t know a lot about his life these days but I know Colette loves her mother and father and feels loved by us. I still sometimes feel like I failed by not doing things differently, by not waiting to get married, not waiting to have a child.. however then the child wouldn’t have been her and that would have been it’s own tragedy. I wish things could have been easier for her sake because I know divorce is very hard on children even when they don’t remember it.. but I’m so grateful our mistakes could be turned into beautiful stories after all. My bond with her is so strong and special to me. We have a special connection that no one can touch whether she’s with me or with her dad, she’s the unbroken version of me as a child. I’m so grateful for her health and for this fact most of all.

So there you go. Although I was a little evasive.. you know more about what was going on and why you saw me 1. do a 180 with my health, appearance and heart; and 2. disappear for so long.

back and white girl

Thanks for listening.. I adore you.