What would I do?

Look at this cute man I married :) (We took this self portrait on our swing yesterday.)

I'm doing ok these days, for all of you who have asked. Last week was really rough - I majorly crashed again and couldn't figure out why until glancing at my prescription bottle I noticed a slight difference in the labeling. Called the pharmacy and found out that the doctor had given me the WRONG prescription for my anxiety (he had given me a prescription strength anti-histamine instead - nice, right?) Anyway, once I figured that out and asserted myself until they gave me the right medicine I got better and better every day.

Rob has been awesome through this whole ordeal. And so have all of you with your cards, emails, and prayers.

I see a counselor once a week and that's going fine and I see a psychologist September 17th about my meds... waiting... waiting...

I have been asking myself lately a question in a book I recently read called "Who moved my cheese?" and the question is "What would you do if you weren't afraid?" It's a scary question... so broad... and I have found that right now my answer is "Music." If I weren't scared, if I weren't afraid, if I was FREE I'd play my guitar and sing all the live-long day. When my guitar is strapped on I feel calm, I feel at peace. I feel like the world is ok and I am ok. So I will be allowing myself to pursue that love. My sister has been writing songs (lyrics) lately and this week I helped put them to music. And my cousin Sara and I used to sing together as teens and are going to start doing that again. Our first adventure we have decided will be to put together a Christmas Set and go around playing it at churches and cafes, etc. I'm really excited about that!

So that's where I am currently...

My cute little niece turned one recently:

And I finally painted my living room (and I LOOOOVE it!)

Have an awesome day everyone!

Stupid Peanuts

Well once again my allergy to peanuts has caused me to not be able to do something I want to do in life. And I am sick of it.

I had a job interview today at the local high school to work in the cafeteria (and was very excited at the prospect of this job because it would got me out of the house for 3 hrs a day, no weekends, no summers) but didn't get it because they use a ton of peanut butter there. (I knew this was a possibility but I was hoping they were peanut free as many places are now due to the severity of the allergy. No such luck). I did well in the interview, the guy really liked me but he said I would be coming in contact with quite a bit of PB every day and it made him uncomfortable to put me in harms way.

My allergy is so sever that I should not even be in the room with peanuts/peanut butter/peanut oil let alone touch it or smell it. So there's no way for me to be safe in that environment.

The man who interviewed me said that he would pass my name on and personally recommend me to the teacher's aide and custodial departments - So who knows, maybe I'll still be able to get a job in the school. But for today I am bummed.

My whole life I have been leaving parties, restaurants, church functions, and even drop out of culinary school (my dream) because of one STUPID allergy. And it's getting OLD, fast.

I just needed to vent about that.

At the end of the day I can't risk my life (or the life of my children's mother) for a part-time job. Period. But it still stinks.

Hello Everyone

Hello all. Just wanted to share a few recent photos. Since moving home we have been hanging out with my sister and her kids quite a bit (we REALLY missed them while we were living in MD).

It's been an adjustment getting use to all the rain again. It has literally rain every day at some point. And most the days are grey and overcast so that doesn't help very much when one struggles with depression (as I do), but oh well.

I have tried 15x to hang my clothes out on the line but they always get rained on....

The kids are having a blast here however. They love being close to their Grandmas and Grandpas and cousins. My son has been really into building things lately (with legos, blocks, etc) and as you can see below my daughter is in to dressing-up - BIG TIME. She even will put on a bee costume and help me water the flowers :)

And she drew this cat the other day - pretty good for a 3 year old!

And my son came to me and said "Mom, how do you spell Pretty Christian?" And then presented me with this about 10 minutes later. (How sweet is that?!)

As far as my struggles with anxiety and depression - thank you all for your prayers. I am following a lot of advice from counselors and friends and doing a TON of thinking and talking to God... He's showing me things that really make sense and speak to my heart... but I may not be able to actually put into words for you all.... I may try to explain at some point and I may not. We'll see.

Protest

Just wanted to post a photo of our newest family member - his name is "Protest" and he's Malachi's dog (he named him). He is a 9 week old Jack Russell Terrier.