self-care

Write31Days #4: Hello Mornings

October 4, 2018 by mamakay Leave a Comment

Ah, mornings. I love the Bible verse in Lamentations 3:22-23 that says “His mercies are new every morning.” Each day we have a new opportunity to start over. To be intentional about how we spend this particular day. I can choose sleep if I had a rough night (and that really might be the best option), I can choose to wake up earlier than my family to have a few moments to myself or I can hit that snooze button just a couple more times and be rushed through my morning. For years I have worked on creating a good morning time routine. Some seasons it has worked better than others (read: babies). I have often been frustrated that even when I have the best plans laid out I get interrupted or I am exhausted and can’t execute them in the way I want.

This past year I was excited to hear about Kat Lee’s new book, Hello Mornings. The by-line is “how to build a grace-filled, life-giving morning routine.” She deep dives into her idea of 3 minute mornings. The concept is that baby steps will help you meet your goals. Start with very small steps and then build on them and on days when time is short you can return to those 3 minutes and it will still bless your day. Her steps are 1. God Time 2. Plan Time 3. Move Time. Doing these 3 things everyday makes such a huge difference.

Since I started following her advice I have been so much more consistent in working these things into my morning! I always want to go big or stay in bed, lol! But following her advice I notice that even when I am only able to do 3 minutes it still makes my day go so much better.

For God Time my one minute is to recite a Bible verse (frequently Psalm 143:8), say a quick prayer and sing a song of praise. My longer version includes journaling in Write the Word the Bible passage for the day, praying (using my prayer journal) and listening to praise music.

For Plan Time my one minute is to look over my calendar for the day. My longer version is to sit down and write out my to do list for the day and assign tasks to certain times of the day as necessary.

For Move Time my one minute is to do a very short yoga routine in which I do Mountain Pose, Forward Fold a couple times and a Downward Dog. My longer version is do a 15 minute yoga routine using the Yoga Studio app on my phone.

Do you have a solid morning routine? What do you do to be consistent at making sure it happens? I would love to hear!

MamaKay

What is Saving My Life – February 2018

February 2, 2018 by mamakay 5 Comments

Modern Mrs Darcy has encouraged us here in the middle of winter to stop and reflect on What is Saving My Life. I love doing this exercise. So here are a few things from my list:

Yoga – I have been hesitant to do yoga for several years because I thought it was all about Eastern religions. But after hearing many people I respect say that it helped them, I decided to give it a try and I absolutely love it! I attend a class weekly at our local gym and follow a couple of people on YouTube at home. (My favorites are Yoga with Adriene and Brett Larkin Yoga). During the month of January I actually did yoga every single day! I have never been this consistent at any exercise before. I did yoga before bed and chose a video based on my energy levels and what time it was. They ranged from 7 to 30 minutes.

Reading – Last year I reclaimed my love of reading and read more than I have in years and I have continued that trend through this winter. I am trying to read 2 fiction books and 1+ non-fiction every month. I think I will write a separate post on the books I am reading.

She Reads Truth Bible Studies – I am currently working on the Letters of Encouragement: 1 & 2 Thessalonians. I just love the beauty of these books and the encouragement to be in the Word daily. I have been getting up nearly every morning around 6 am so I can spend some time in the Word before the kids get up.

Twinkly Lights – We put up lights at Christmas and we loved them so much we’ve kept them up for the foreseeable future. The days are so short this time of year that they help brighten up our days

PowerSheets from Cultivate What Matters – I worked hard to fill out these sheets to start the new year and I have never been as successful at keeping my goals as I have so far this year. I love the thoughtfulness and grace that is contained in this workbook. They are sold out but I highly recommend you consider getting them when they are available again if you need help figuring out what you want your life to look like and how to actually make that happen!

Felt Letter Board – I bought myself this for Christmas and I absolutely love it! Words are my jam and this makes it easy to create inspiration and change it whenever I want to.

Echo Dot – I also splurged the end of last year and got an Echo Dot. It is so fun to be able to use. I mostly use it for listening to music and setting timers plus asking random questions. The kids love having her tell them jokes and asking for the weather forecast.

Amazon Music Unlimited (Family edition) – In conjunction with my Echo Dot, I love my Amazon Music! With the unlimited subscription I have found almost every song I ever want to hear is included. I have so many playlists as I enjoy a wide range of music and now it is easy to listen to whatever I am in the mood for. We did upgrade to the family plan so people would quit kicking me off!

Lemon Honey Tea – My in-laws live in Arizona and sent me a box of lemons. I love squeezing half a lemon, mixing it with a tablespoon of honey and then filling my cup with warm water. It is the perfect drink to start the day with!

Podcasts – I am not really an audio learner but I have found that podcasts have improved certain times of my day by giving me something to think about while I am doing my least favorite tasks like washing dishes (Do you know that’s the one time when everyone will leave you alone?) or driving to pick people up.

Wednesday Kitchen Days – I have given myself permission to have a slow day on Wednesday. The kids do their independent work for school and I spend extra time in the kitchen, cleaning and baking and not stressing about the day.

What is saving your life right now? I would love to hear!

MamaKay

*some of the links in this post are affiliate links. I will get a small commission if you purchase something using the link that helps pay for this website. Thank you for your support!

January Reflections

January 29, 2018 by mamakay Leave a Comment

How are you doing? Have you done all of the things you set out to do this month? Are you claiming the mantra: February is the new January? It’s true you know! There is nothing magical about January 1st. February 1st is just as good of a starting day. As is any Monday. Not so sure about Friday but thanks be to God his mercies are new every morning. We can have a fresh start anytime! We just have to claim it.

I have been amazed! This has been my best January ever! Did I accomplish everything? By no means! But I have established some good habits and accomplished many things that I wanted to accomplish. There are a couple reasons why I think I have done better this time around. One is PowerSheets! I know I keep raving about them but they really helped me to process what is important to me and why and that has motivated me to keep practicing. Another thing is that I have come to realize that during this season of life my goals need to be more of a crafting of my daily life and habits than big projects. The final key to my success the last couple years is tracking! I have made habit trackers in my bullet journal and also used the Tending List in the PowerSheets. It really helps me stay on track and/or realize that I may need to re-evaluate what I am trying to accomplish if I am consistently not following through on particular items on my list. It just may not be the season for that thing.

So what have I been successful at? I have gotten up at 6 am almost every weekday this month. I have done yoga every single day this month!! (Guys this is amazing! I have never done something every single day without missing, ever!) I have read my Bible almost everyday. I’ve also read a book nearly everyday. Most evenings I have sat down and reflected on my day and checked my schedule and created my to-do list for the next day. I’ve worked on building community and spent special time with my family.

What have I missed? I have not been getting nearly enough steps in. (But it is January and there is a sheet of ice covering the ground outside.) I have not drank enough water. And my kitchen is still dirty almost everyday when I call it quits for the day. I am still a work in progress and I am ok with that. At least I am making progress!

I hope you are finding your groove and building a life for yourself that provides happiness and meaning.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you believe so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Romans 15:13

MamaKay

What I Learned this Fall

November 30, 2017 by mamakay 1 Comment

I’ve been following Emily P. Freeman (especially her podcast: The Next Right Thing) and she encouraged us to reflect on a season instead of waiting until the end of the year. I found it very helpful this summer so I’m back for the fall edition. Go to : http://emilypfreeman.com/wwl-fall-2017/ to see her post.

I learned that personal retreats are a wonderful and needful thing for me. I wrote about it here.
Loss although painful can bring healing and a closeness to God and to others that just doesn’t seem to happen when all is well.
I learned that it is time to let go of the idol having more children. It would seem that eight is enough for us. I love my family and I adore little babies but at 43 the time has come to be done with that phase of my life.
I love candles! For so many years I have hesitated to use them because I have so many little ones around but no more! I found some cute unscented candles on Amazon that I can use on the mantel and for entertaining.
I like to start groups! I sat in the background feeling sad that I didn’t have ways to have meaningful connections with others. This year I have made great efforts to start groups: an IF:Table group for ladies, a women’s Bible study and most recently a Supper Club for couples (so the men could participate too). It has been so worth it to invest in these groups of people and move beyond surface conversations through intentional questions.
I love decorating my mantel! I needed a place of beauty instead of a collecting spot for all the stuff people didn’t want the toddler to get, so I reclaimed it! I intend to decorate it seasonally and preserve it as a place of beauty in our home.
Setting up a special bullet journal for the holidays is so helpful! Last year I had a separate journal but I used a small one. This year I got the idea from Aimee Kollmansberger to create a bullet journal to use for years to come to collect all the ideas and lists instead of recreating everything every year.
Gratitude really is my lifeline. I never stay very consistent at journaling my lists but I find that when I do it really grounds me and it is so wonderful to be able to read back through my lists from the last several years.
Spotify is actually pretty cool! I’ve put off using it for several years now but after several recommendations from my eldest daughter I gave it a try. I love my music on Amazon but it is such a nice way to be able to share music with others and to hear new music.
“Being a mom is a lot like being a life coach,” my 10 year old daughter told me as we were taking a walk. I’ve been pondering this ever since. I think she is right and it is such a perspective change for me.

How about you? What have you learned this fall? I’d love to hear from you!

MamaKay

Life and Loss

November 6, 2017 by mamakay 5 Comments

*Content Warning: This post contains a personal description of a miscarriage

I sit here looking out the window on this cold snowy day thankful for the quietness the snow brings and the warmth from my fireplace. I’m feeling a little better than the last few days but when I try to push to hard my body tells me in no uncertain terms that I am not ready to move on quite yet. You see, I just lost a baby over the weekend. I want to just hide and close in but I sense that God is telling me that only through pushing past the hurt and sharing my pain can I truly be healed and he can use me to comfort others. I think it is so hard to let others into our pain. I feel so vulnerable. But when I don’t I feel so isolated and find myself spiraling in despair. It is only within true community that we allow ourselves to be cared for and the healing comes so much quicker.

This isn’t my first time. In fact, it is my third. I have hid in my grief and I have shared my grief. And I’m here to tell you that although it is ever so hard when I have shared my grief the load has been lightened. Both physically with people offering what assistance they can and emotionally being able to be prayed for and uplifted by others and as well as just the tenderness of a hug and extra kindness extended.

It’s so odd to me as I process this pregnancy. I was hesitant to share our joy of a new baby for fear of what people would say. I’m over 40 now and we already have 8 children and people have so many opinions about such things. Honestly, we thought we were done. I am getting older and this was the longest we had ever gone without getting pregnant. It was quite an adjustment of my thinking to add another one to our family when our oldest turns 19 this month. But we have always trusted that God knows what our family should look like and have faith that as the Creator of all life we are willing to follow what he has in store for us. We told very few people that we were expecting.

And then after just getting cleared by the doctor the night before to go ahead and use a midwife again I started bleeding Friday morning. It was just a little bit but I knew this was a sign of the end. We were 9 weeks along. I was emotionally wrecked. I pretty much spent the entire day crying on and off and told only my husband and my sisters what was going on. My husband was kind enough to take the afternoon off of work so he could attend to the kids while I holed myself up in my room. He was also such an encouragement to me and held me and cried with me as he was suffering the loss as well. My two year old sweetly hugged me again and again and asked me why I was crying? I tried to check out, reading some fiction to take me to another world. I prayed. I listened to Christy Nockel’s new album, Be Held and ate ice cream and too much Turtle Chex. I was so sad.

On Saturday the emotional pain was less but the physical pain increased. I was bleeding more including small pieces of tissue and had cramps like a bad period. I spent most of the day in bed watching tv with the kids and reading my book. I reached out to a couple more people and a sweet lady from church brought us dinner and some flowers for me.

I woke up early Sunday morning (especially early since time changed over night) with the beginnings of contractions. My husband went to church to teach Bible class and the kids were all home with me sick with sore throats and coughs (because that’s life in a big family this time of year). Thankfully they were content to watch tv.

The contractions intensified just as they do in labor only they aren’t as strong as when I’ve been in labor. Around 10 am I passed the baby and the placenta. The baby was too little and I couldn’t see it among the tissues. I got a hold of my midwife and she told me to watch for a fever and also if I bled enough to fill 2 pads in 30 minutes to get to the emergency room immediately. The bleeding lessened as the day progressed and I haven’t had any complications. The emotions washed over me anew. My husband came right home and held me and I just cried and cried.

During the course of the day I shared my grief with many of those closest to us. They were sweet, provided meals for us, prayed for us and just acknowledged our grief. There really isn’t much that can be done. Just being there for someone means so much. Letting them know they are loved and that its ok to grieve and that someone cares means the world. (And food is always nice especially when there are others in the house that still like to eat even if Mom isn’t feeling up to cooking.)

By evening I felt more like myself and was able to eat dinner with the family and get a shower. I was worn out and was asleep before 9 pm. (Which was good since my little guys needed me in the wee hours. The world doesn’t stop needing us Mamas.)

I plan to take it easy this week and ease back into our normal routines just like I would after having a baby only a little faster. I know that waves of grief will hit me unexpectedly and that it will take a couple of weeks for my body to heal and longer than that for my heart. But healing will come. God is ever so present in the pain and I can feel his presence as He walks through this with me never leaving me alone in the pain. I process through writing and I want you to know that although it hurts, healing does come. It comes in waves, little by little, it changes until the pain is dulled and the thoughts of what may have been give way to what is and although this little life was short it will always be remembered.

We all have trials we must face but let’s share our burdens with one another that the love of Christ can be felt by those around us. I have shared my experience in such detail so that others might know what to expect or might have a little better understanding of what it is like.

These were my experiences, yours will be different. I pray that by sharing we both will feel less alone and will have the strength to carry on come what may.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

2 Corinthians 1:3-4

MamaKay

Personal Retreat

September 28, 2017 by mamakay 1 Comment

Have you taken a personal retreat? I have gone on a women’s retreat a couple of times and taken a weekend away with my husband but I have never had a personal retreat until just recently. I became somewhat obsessed with the idea after hearing about it from Aimee Kollmansberger at middlemercies.com. It took lots of thinking and a few failed plans but finally we figured out a way to make it happen!

My husband had an event he needed to travel to for the weekend. He would be gone 8 am – 5 pm Saturday and Sunday. So we decided that I would join him for the weekend and then we decided to stay an extra night so we wouldn’t have to rush home. My husband’s parents agreed to watch the kids so we could get away.

We found the perfect 1 bedroom apartment on HomeAway.com. This is the second time we have used Home Away to find a place to stay. It is so much nicer than staying in a hotel! The price is about the same but instead of getting just a bedroom & bathroom you can get a whole apartment or house! The place we rented as an old mansion that had been divided into 4 apartments. It had a full kitchen, a dining area, bathroom, bedroom and a cozy living room. The location was just amazing! I was able to walk around the beautiful old mansion district of Helena. One direction led to downtown and the other direction led to a huge system of trails on Mount Helena.

We drove up Friday evening after my husband got off of work and enjoyed dinner out since it was so late. Then we stopped at a grocery store to buy some food for the weekend in addition to what we brought from home. (One of the perks of having a kitchen! We spent $40 and even got some fun treats like a mini Chocolate mint cake instead of spending $25-50/meal.)

Saturday morning I made a simple breakfast of cheesy eggs I had brought from home and some danishes we bought. My husband left bright and early for his event. As I was seeing him off I saw, standing in the yard, a doe and her 2 fawns! What a beautiful way to start the day!

I went inside and cozied up with my Bible and prayer journal with some lovely music playing in the background. Instead of continuing in my current Bible study I decided to just see what God wanted to say to me. I found myself reading Zephaniah and basking in the thought of God quieting me with his love while he sang over me.

I wanted to spend this time away doing some serious self reflection. On a whim I decided to go through Tsh Oxenreider’s course “Like Your Life” that I had purchased through last year’s Ultimate Homemaking Bundle. (Although it used to be called Upstream Field Guide. She upgraded it and generously offered it to those who had received the old course.) It was perfect for this weekend! The whole course is based on delving in deep to find your purpose, vocation, vision and goals. As a fun extra, she even included playlists on Spotify to listen to while working through the journaling workbook. I found several artists I enjoyed that I hadn’t heard before.

After working through the course for several hours I took a break for a walk around the neighborhood. The weather was perfect for a fall day. And the old houses in the neighborhood were so beautiful! I listened to Sally Clarkson’s podcast on her new book, The Lifegiving Table. For lunch I made a grilled cheese roast beef sandwich with my favorite Izze to drink.

I got back to work and finished part 3 in time for my husband to return back from his day. We decided to enjoy a walk together and this time walked through downtown Helena. Most of the shops were closed but there were lots of amazing buildings and sculptures to look at. Back at our apartment we enjoyed salad, baked potatoes and lamb chops we brought from home for dinner. Much better than dinner at a fancy restaurant!

After spending some time with my husband he was done in from his long day so I enjoyed reading some fiction: Mary Beth Whalen’s new book, When We Were Worthy. I loved the way she looks at a tragedy that happens in a small town from the many different perspectives of members of the town and how it changed each of them.

Sunday was much the same. My husband headed off to his event and I got to spend time in the Word and journaling and then back to work on my course. I was able to finish up by lunch time which was so wonderful because I was about done in by that point!

I had a leftover baked potato with barbecue pulled pork we brought from home for lunch. Then I went for another walk around the neighborhood. After I returned home I laid down for a little while and continued reading my book.

When my husband got home we thought about going out to dinner but decided just to grab a couple more things from the grocery store and eat at home. We made barbecue burgers with meat we brought from home with bought French fries and had the mint chocolate cake for dessert. I got to finish my book and enjoy a leisurely evening with my husband.

Monday morning I made a breakfast hash with the leftover pulled pork, baked potatoes, onions, eggs and cheese we had brought. Then we packed up our stuff and cleaned up the apartment. We headed over to the Mount Helena city park and went for a hike. The sun was shining so even though it was 45 degrees it felt wonderful! We got an amazing view of the city and saw some more deer.

On our way back home we got to indulge in one of our favorite knowledge pursuits: personality types! We listened to the audio version of Anne Bogel’s new book Reading People. My husband got me hooked years ago and now we love analyzing our personality types and those of our family.

I really could not have asked for a better weekend! It was so wonderful to spend the weekend in quiet reflection, walks, inspirational podcasts and music. Even better was getting to spend time with my best friend in the evenings discussing all of the things.

I hope to turn this into a regularly scheduled annual event. It feels like it was such a gift!

MamaKay