Mental Health

Unfollow has become my favorite button. Recently, I realized (for the hundredth time) how much time I actually spend on my phone. And I'm embarrassed about it. Phones can be so addicting. I've set lots of limits for myself to get off my phone: turning off notifications, charging my phone across the room when I go to bed, etc. These ALL work well for me. HOWEVER, I started thinking about the TYPE of content I'm consuming when I get online and what it's doing to me. If it's not giving you life, get rid of it! I decided to do a SUPER inventory of who I was following on social media. Were these people adding value to my life? Do they make me...

I am a mom to an almost 2 year old child who is too smart for his own good. He is my greatest blessing, but he also exhausts me. I'm married to an engineer who, at times, has an unpredictable work schedule due to emergencies. By day, you'll find me in the classroom teaching middle school English and by night/weekend, you'll find me spending time with said 2 year old, as well as working on a personal blog and a small business my husband and I started together. To say that I am spread thin is an understatement. I think, as moms, we are all guilty of giving it all to everyone or trying to do it all until we...

The second I feel like I’ve got a category of motherhood down, I get thrown through a loop. Either our schedule changes or my daughter hits a new phase. Motherhood is an ever-changing journey. However, I do feel like I’ve consistently had the cleanup category just short of mastered. I realized early on that how my house looks has a huge impact on my mood and patience. I care about my home feeling like a refuge, not a place where I see a huge to-do list the second I walk in the door. On the same note, I want to spend more time being home, not cleaning my home. We've gotten pretty good with efficiency around here. Here’s how: Toy Rotation I...

Reading has always been one of my favorite hobbies. It’s my way to unwind, relax and escape from the hustle and bustle of daily life.  Since becoming a mom, this is one area that has unfortunately taken a backseat, but I still manage to read at least two books a month. Last year was one of the best in terms of the books I read. When I closed out the year and looked back at my Goodreads account, I noticed that ninety percent of my 2020 books fell into the fiction genre. That came as no surprise because I love getting lost in a good novel. As much as I love a good romance or mystery, I realized I needed to...

Before my personal experience as a NICU mom, I knew other moms who had been through a NICU stay. My sister and sister-in-law had both been there. I visited my nephew in the NICU. I saw what was on the surface: they left the hospital without their baby, the strict NICU rules, scrubbing in. Still, I had no clue what they were experiencing on a personal level, at least not until I had my son at 24 weeks, weighing 1 lb. 11 oz. and 12 inches long. From September 1, 2017, to June 25, 2018, Junior was in the NICU in critical condition. One of the toughest parts of his 10-month stay was the fact that not a single person knew...