Wow! Long time, no see! It has been over a year since I have posted and I am so excited to be back! Life, for us, has been an exciting rollercoaster and I think I will spend this first post catching you up. But don’t worry, I have lots of exciting thoughts, research, learning experiences to share with you very soon!
Goodbye YouTube
Some of you might have been following me on YouTube and I want to thank you for your support! As I began planning to come back to blogging there was some drama stirring up on YouTube. It doesn’t seem like a lot of mommy/family channels are being treated very well right now. There is a lot more craziness that goes into it but, suffice it to say, I didn’t have peace about continuing my channel as the main method of my communication. If my channel had been very large it might have been a different story, but as it is I thought this would be the perfect time to switch back to simply blogging.
When I last posted, I had just started a temporary, but full-time nanny position with my two littles in tow. A couple of months later, I got pregnant! Toward the end of the pregnancy, the nanny position ended and my husband got a new job taking us from Illinois to Georgia. Two weeks later we had our baby, little Charlie, and four weeks after that we (and the whole country) were quarantined! Yes, it has been a crazy, but wonderful, ride!
The real reason I’ve been away
As you may have gathered by now, our life has been busy. These major events (and the time/stress that comes with them) are the main reasons why I have not picked up my blog again. But let’s be honest, what mother isn’t busy? What season of homemaking doesn’t introduce new learning curves and craziness? I think we can always make time for things as long as they are high enough on our priority list. The real problem is that I put this blog too low on my priority list is because I was embarrassed.
You see, I feel like this blog has always stood for health and healing. For the vast majority of my homemaking journey, researching those topics has been one of my top priorities. I have the knowledge of how to live in a healthy way and have used food and natural resources to bring healing to my family on several occasions. In fact, I am a firm believer that if there is an ailment/condition plaguing someone in your family, even if it has left the doctors stumped, there is a very good chance that, with enough research, we could find a solution.
The consequences for my actions
But somewhere along the way, I lost the motivation to pursue my own health with the same vigor as I pursued the rest of my family. Maybe part of it was feeling that MY body had failed when my older son came out with head-to-toe eczema. Then I felt like I failed again when I lost my milk supply when he was six months old and I could no longer give him the healing “liquid gold” that he so desperately needed. Whatever the reason, I often gave in to my addictions to processed, toxin-filled food. I usually ate because of an emotional desire more often than a physical need.
I now find myself about 80 pounds overweight. As I reached the end of my most recent pregnancy, I had some medical difficulties surrounding the birth. These made me face all of my poor decisions and the consequences that came with them. It made me feel so much shame for the poor diet choices I had made over the past couple of years. If I had done things differently my little Charlie would have had a much better start to his life.
It’s time to turn things around!
God truly brought me to my knees. My husband and I have recommitted to take care of ourselves as we care for our children. We shall do everything we can for little Charlie while he’s nursing and able to gain the nutrients I consume. Now, don’t get me wrong…by God’s grace, Charlie is a healthy baby, despite some struggles at the get-go. We just know that his birth could have been a lot smoother and his gut could have been a lot healthier if we had used the knowledge we had since day 1.
So, here I am. A humbled mommy who hopes someone can, not only learn from my research, but also from my mistakes! In reading some of my older posts, I realized something needs clarifying: on my blog, I am sharing what I am LEARNING – not what I have MASTERED. I want to start an atmosphere of transparency as we all stumble through this amazing, crazy journey together.
I just keep reminding myself, you can learn as much (if not more) from failures as from successes. Believe me, I am learning soooo much!
Thank you so much for joining me on my journey and I can’t wait to hear from you soon!