Far from the best times of my life, my mid-to-late twenties were an extended pity party. Professionally, emotionally, and physically, I was stuck in a place I didn’t want to be. Hate is too light a word to describe how I felt there. It’s a perfectly fine place for some people to live, but for…
➠ Continue ReadingDo you ever feel like life just keeps ‘happening’ to you? Like each day you’re just waking up to find out what it’s going to be today. Of course, sometimes things go your way. But, for the most part you’re just floating through the days and waiting for a miracle to snap you up from…
➠ Continue ReadingAfter being ravaged by postpartum depression for most of 2015, my 2016 goal was to retain sanity — by any means necessary. Things had fallen apart soon after I gave birth to my daughter, with the pressures of work and new motherhood driving me to depression and sleep deprivation. To overcome this I was willing…
➠ Continue ReadingThere are a lot of things I’m not great at in life, but I excel at dinner time. While serving chicken nuggets in front of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse might make some aspects of my day easier, I refuse. Family dinner is too important. My children’s health, education, and well being mean too much to me…
➠ Continue ReadingI had always been curious about camping. Something about a tent, a fire, and marshmallows sounded like a lot of fun, but when I brought it up, no one in my family wanted to sleep on the ground outside when we had perfectly good beds inside. With a child’s eye, I began to notice that…
➠ Continue ReadingThe first time I came across the idea of ‘mindful eating’, the article had something to do with using chopsticks to eat. But, since I am living in Japan and already using chopsticks daily, I flipped the page and moved on to something I felt was more relevant. At that time, I never imagined that…
➠ Continue ReadingWhen you hear the term “crack baby, ” you might picture the movie Losing Isaiah with the screaming baby suffering due to his mother’s drug habit. He was the classic crack baby: disruptive, troubled, and fictional. Crack babies aren’t a real thing Yes, some children were exposed in utero to cocaine, but there is no…
➠ Continue ReadingWhen I was young, my dad had a running joke that he would not let me get married until I was 30, 60, or 90. He never said that to my brother. I always laughed it off because I knew he wasn’t serious. I married before age 30, after all. But my husband asked something…
➠ Continue ReadingWhen we talk about weight loss and diets, the question that everyone asks is, “Am I going to be hungry?” Let’s be honest, no one likes to be hungry, and hunger can cause the best intentions to fail. But with meals featuring whole grains, you won’t feel hungry. That’s because whole grains are full of…
➠ Continue Readinghttp://www.cincinnatibirthphotography.com/ When I delivered my daughter nearly four years ago, I planned on having a natural home birth. I had spent the majority of my pregnancy educating myself about the business of childbirth. I had a low-risk pregnancy and knew I wanted low-intervention childbirth for myself and my baby. But my daughter had other plans!…
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