Cool must have "Mom Life Hacks"

Okay mom's. I know that I am certainly not the only one who gets frustrated with having to clean out my van practically every other day of the week. I cannot tell you how many times I have told the kids they will never eat in the car again, sure, I mean come on now, don't tell me you haven't said it a few hundred times yourself. One thing us mom's always say we're going to do especially as the new year approaches is, here you go... wait for it~ GET MORE ORGANIZED! I am one of those people that honestly needs organized and tidy space to find my calm. When things are cluttered or messy I feel on edge. Trust me, my hubby will definitely say, "SHE'S NOT LYING". So in my search for help with the van clutter I went on a quest and found this lovely website called www.therealisticmama.com and trust me, she has some pretty incredible mom hacks on there that ya'll need to come and check out! I promise that you will be glad you did. I plan on going right out and buying all necessary tools to get my tidy on and you can too. Visit her website and ad some of the cool and amazing hacks to your pinterest page so that you won't forget where you found them and you can refer back to them later when you need to remember one. That's what I do when I find something great, I save it. Here's the link to her page below. Tell her "The Green Apple Tree Blog" sent you!

http://www.therealisticmama.com/10-car-hacks-every-mom-needs/

Feelin crafty?

Look at these cute ideas!

Check out these really cute idea's I found on http://lilluna.com/20-christmas-crafts-for-kids/

There are so many cute idea's. My kids love to craft almost as much as their mommy. Most of these idea's only take 15 minutes or less to create. Make some memories with your lil's today <3

serendipity

I hate re-visiting old guilt. Feeling like I can't get past a certain moment in time as it replays like a bad 80's tune over and over in my mind. Do you have a memory, something that you know isn't healthy but you just can't let it go? Yeah, well that's the sort of thing that I'm talking about. There are people in our life that no matter how much we care or love, they remain toxic. If we keep them in our circle we often end up getting hurt by something that they say or do. It's really hard to let go of someone you care about. I've entrusted my heart with this individual so many times and each time I've been disappointed or let down, 1 way or another. 

I think part of me holds on to that memory because letting go would mean moving on. It would mean having to admit that I'm growing older and that things of the past should remain there for a reason. We make so many mistakes in our youth, back then it was easy to get away with and people understood because you were more impulsive, making decisions that were often more spontaneous without thinking through the consequences. 

I remember making bad choices but the outcome never seemed as awful looking back. At the time I'm sure it seemed to have horrible implications and maybe felt less forgiving but when I think about what all I got away with, now I feel guilty that I wasn't more careful about not hurting those that I loved along they way.

You know some times when the warm summer breezes return and there's a certain aroma in the air, it brings me back to those moments. I begin to think of a different place in time. It makes me return to those days long past, to times that were perhaps less complicated. I remember sitting on the dock out at Moraine missing old friends. I would sit there, alone for hours and write in my journal about my dreams, old memories, new passions. You were always there, right at the edge of my memory and constantly haunting my every thought. 

Even after the pain, the good thoughts return. I can't seem to shake the desire to re-establish the connection. Letting go should be easy, should never feel impossible but still, it does. I cannot get past those memories. The illusion remains, I still long for those moments when I felt significant. Having the knowledge that I mattered at some point, that you cared maybe just a little even, it validates me in some way. Makes me feel more memorable. As much as I'd like to forget, doing so would remove a big part of who I am today. So I'll hold onto those old thoughts for memories sake, I'll try to look past the painful thoughts of you and remember the ones that bring only smiles. When you think of me send me love and light then release me.

Yester years... gone

Yes I'm tired, I'm cranky, sore and a bit cynical this evening but it's okay. It's not typically my nature to feel so oblique but I think we all have those days. I have been upset lately because I find myself having so many regrets recently about the choices, or rather lack thereof in my former years. You see it wasn't all but 20 some years ago I had considered attending the Hallmark Institute of Photography in Turner Falls, Massachusetts. It was a dream, a dream of doing what I always enjoyed, my 1st love. For so many years I questioned and doubted my ability to do this thing, my vision was so small. It doesn't help that through the years and modernization of digital photography everyone has now declared that they are a photographer. I never technically considered myself a professional at anything... I just did it. I love taking candid portrait's more than anything, posing certainly has never been my thing. Through the years artistic quality prints have become another love, though my favorite thing to do is study people. People doing ordinary things. Watching life unfold through my lens is so incredible. It's exciting, almost like Christmas morning when I can come home and see what amazing scene I've captured. Did I get the smile, the tears, the laughter, the pain in their eye's? Did I pause time in a still frame and capture the moment I envisioned would become a keepsake forever? It's all surreal to me, every time, every shot. Oh I don't know, I'm probably being a little melodramatic. I mean it's nearly 3 am and I'm certainly slow getting to bed this cool September eve/early morn. I can surmise that tomorrow morning sunrise will come and I'll be missing it with a gentle slumber, least till I hear little whispers and I'm hungry coming from the little bugs beside my bed ha ha. Goodnight my princes of Maine and Kings of New England.

weak

Starting a new devotional study with myself has been a good and bad thing. Good in the way that I am getting in the word a lot more these past few days, bad that I'm an all or nothing kind of person and I feel like I need to fix all my issue's at one time. When you're doing a step study you can't jump ahead of the class, you have to stick to the program and only work on 1 thing at a time. That can be difficult for me. I'm trying really hard to understand this concept and to slow down. I didn't derail this train in just 1 day so I'm certainly not going to get it back on track in that amount of time either and if anyone thinks or says they can, they are lying to themselves and you!

There are so many things that I've discovered since starting my Celebrate Recovery group. 1 is that I am powerless without the help of God. I have no control of my eating disorder, habits or self destruction. I cannot do anything to change the way I respond or react to triggers because I am out of control. I have been living in denial, thinking that if I can just do this or do that, if I can just stop eating bad things, get to bed early, stop thinking about that last piece of chocolate or that bottle of coke sitting in the fridge, I'll be okay. Just walk away... you've got this, RIGHT! uh, no... that's not the case at all. I can't have chocolate in the house, I cannot drink coke, AT ALL without wanting more and I really do not have the ability to shut my brain off and get rid of the insomnia-obviously, or I'd be in bed an not up at this insane hour of 4 am.

You cannot find help in those books in the self help section, trust me I know. I have a whole collection that is sitting on my bedroom book stand and the only thing they do is collect dust. I look at magazine's while standing in line at the check out and see this new fad diet that's just come out and it's so amazing and people are losing 100 lbs so it's screaming buy me, buy me and I'll do the work for you, the secret is right inside. Yeah... the only thing that's got me is another pile of dust or magazine's that get thrown in a corner and read over and over again while sitting on the porcelain throne.

What I'm trying to say here I guess is, we all have things we are not in control of but denial, denial is the worst thing ever. As soon as we can say, we have no control and that we are out of control, all else is in vain. Accepting that you have a problem and that you have no chance of succeeding or kicking it on your own is the only way you'll bypass the guilt and shame of keeping it a secret. Give it all away, let God carry that burden for you. I'm pretty sure he wants to heal the weak. He created us and that means he has the ability to fix us. I guess all we really have to do is let him.

His Umbrella

It occurred to me this evening that I miss something. I have been watching Parenthood on Netflix. It's a show about a middle class American family who experiences the struggles of daily life and the extraordinary circumstances that make them not only diverse but an amazing yet complex unit. From the outside one might imagine that they are just like everyone else but as a viewer you can relate to each individual character and feel what they are experiencing. It makes you believe you're stepping into the scene and life of a real family. In all honesty, it's relate-able and feels real so it draws you in. I guess that's what a great writer does. They remove you from your present circumstance and place you directly into the pages of a dynamic plot leaving you asking "what happens next". 

That's where I am right now. I'm in this place that I prayed for so many years of my life. I'm a wife, a mom to my beautiful boys and I feel like God has given me everything that I've prayed for so what comes next? Do I deserve a next? Anything, something bigger than this because this, this is bigger than I could ever even imagine. After trying to get pregnant all those years and then have 2 healthy boys, do I even have the right at 40 years old to be praying for another baby? To want one more child to complete our family? Should I want to foster children that come from an imperfect world with all kinds of baggage brought on by selfish adults and people that abused or neglected the very one's they always said they'd protect? In a perfect world there wouldn't be orphans or widows but alas' this is not a perfect world. It's a fallen one. We are to care for those people right? God tells us to love and protect them, treat them as your own. In that regard family takes on an entirely different meaning if you ask me.

Should you worry about what God calls you to do? I think that he equips you for the job and just expects you to show up and punch in. Sometimes the overtime is mandatory and days are long, breaks short but at the end of the week or month you can see it was worth the effort and you are proud that you took care of things the way God showed you to do. That is amazing, so so amazing to me. If I come to Him with my burden's and my sorrow's, he doesn't turn me away. He lift's me up and says "Let me carry you through the storm". I don't even feel the raindrops under his umbrella because I know he will keep me safe and dry, sheltered in His unfailing love. Take a minute and soak that up... understand that no matter how many times you've given up on yourself or someone else, God never gives up on the one's he loves. Just show up...

pain... eeeeeek

There really isn't a moment lately where I've felt completely, I mean 100% well. I kind of expect that since I'm getting a little older but this feeling, this crippling pain is wearing on me. My joints, muscles, every fiber of my being hurts. It's almost as if touching me is like sticking a hot skillet on my bare skin, I wretch at the very gesture. Sadly the boys tend to be very careful the way they sit on my leg's, the way they hug or grab me because they have gotten so used to me saying, ouch or that hurts... I hate that I can't do normal things like exercise and walk on a daily basis because of the pain. It's depressing and honestly, I feel a little hopeless without insurance that this is going to end anytime soon. The insurance the post office offers, well it sucks right now until John gets a career position. Not only does it barely cover necessities, anything serious and forget it, it's mostly out of pocket. Hardly worth the paper it's written on. We were very disappointed but hey, it's kind of expected. The government employee's used to be well take care of but even when John was in the Marine Corp, although most the major medical was covered, there were additional things like dental and vision we had to pay. 

I haven't seen my hematologist for over a year & 1/2 because I have no insurance. Haven't had a treatment since a year ago in March, hence the horrible fibromylgia  flair ups. The overload of iron causes me to have migraine's and muscle, joint and nerve pain when it's high. My treatment's should be free with Central Blood Bank but since my Dr. left the practice I have to see someone else who is unfamiliar with my history and that will require an extensive work up and blood work in order to facilitate the blood bank the necessary treatment plan and schedule for my phlebotomy's. It's like a vicious circle that doesn't end. The ladies at the clinic keep telling me I have to apply for disability so that I stop going without my treatments but honestly, I'd rather just get some kind of temporary insurance until John's work provides us with better options but time is running out... Hemochromatosis is progressive and without therapeutic treatment's it will kill me eventually. I will suffer from organ failure, the big C or pancreatic issue's, liver failure etc. I cannot put my kids through that. I guess what it comes down to is that I'm at a point where options are limited and I'm going to do something one way or another. I cannot live like this any longer :(