Hello, third trimester ✨

I’ve been waiting for you!

Fair season 🎢

Five Word Poem of the Day

Tired moms everywhere are sighing

23 weeks…

Are we there yet?

Yesterday I hit the 23 week mark. I know we are on the downhill slope already, but I’m already starting to feel so miserable. Well, I’ve had it rough this pregnancy as it is, but the swelling is in high gear already. I’ve got cankles every night and a simple walk across the house makes me tired.

Did I mention we are supposed to close on our new home next week?

It all sounds so daunting. I’ve got so much to do, but I’m trying to keep a healthy balance between being productive and making sure that I don’t push myself too much. It’s a hard thing to balance when you’re up and down so much cleaning and cooking and packing and playing with a toddler… Every night I’m so damn tired I pass out within ten minutes of hitting the pillow – which is weird for me, because usually I lay there and stew on life before bed. I’m usually laying there for quite a bit before I finally pass out, but not here lately. It’s actually pretty nice. And unexpected, considering the whole pregnancy thing. Thank goodness I bought a new mattress, mattress pad, silk sheets, and a fluffy duvet, huh? It’s like we are sleeping on a cloud every night… and to think I was considering on waiting until we moved! I’m so glad I pulled the trigger on new bedding. It was much needed and the money spent is definitely paying off. If you’re looking into getting new bedding at a low price, check out this post!

So I’ve technically got 111 days until we go to the hospital for the c-section. It doesn’t seem like a lot of time considering we are moving to a new home in that time period. I’ve got a lot of nesting left to do, and not a ton of time to do it! Hopefully the swelling and faint feelings stay away for a bit so we can get moved as easily as possible.

Baby is moving quite a bit and I’m getting anxious to get this pregnancy OVER WITH so that I never have to be pregnant again! LOL – I’m NOT kidding, though!

I don’t have the time

I want to feel angry.

I want to.

But I don’t have the time,

I don’t have the mental capacity,

I don’t have the sanity,

I don’t have the self-control to

bring myself back in

once I start down that path.

It’s not something I can prioritize

anymore.

It no longer consumes me.

I push it to the back burner

because I have to.

I know I could feel better

if I let those emotions come

over me,

if I’d just let them go.

But I’ve got people

depending on me now,

that I didn’t have before.

Because my daughter is

watching me with a careful eye

and I don’t want the only

vision of a strong woman she sees

to be the one she sees on a screen.

Before, I could let

the emotions consume me.

I could fall apart and

nobody would know.

Before, I could hold the anger

until I was ready to release it.

I could reel myself in.

I could take my time sorting out

my feelings and

making sense of emotions.

But now?

It’s all different now.

I don’t have the time.

21 weeks

21 weeks. We are more than halfway to meeting our new family member!

Let me tell ya… This mom is READY.

I’m still throwing up in the mornings occasionally. I actually started my day puking this morning. Not to mention, my ankles are swelling every time I stand for too long. I haven’t had as many bad headaches as I was a few weeks ago, but I’m just waiting on their return. With as miserable as I’ve been, it’s hard for me to grasp that I still have 18 more weeks to go… And I only get bigger from here on out!

But now we know the gender and the exciting stuff starts… SHOPPING! DECORATING!

Well, that is, if the deal on our new house ever closes. We’ve been waiting since the end of April. We originally set our contract to close the first week of June, but the sellers have been dragging their feet and we had to extend to July 1. We are now less than a week away, and still haven’t heard a whole lot from our realtor on the progress of closing and being able to move. This is frustrating, because we have a lot to do within the next four months before the baby comes, and July is a busy month for us. Buuut, we will find a way to get it figured out and hopefully we’ll be moving here within a short time!

I’ve been feeling the lil bean move around a whole lot lately, which seems exciting! When I was pregnant with Della, I really had a disconnect between the baby I was carrying and the fact that it was my child. I still feel that with this pregnancy, but it’s a bit easier for me to understand that a human I will adore will come of it. I think some women have different reactions to pregnancy, and a lot of my reactions are ughhhh. I’m thankful for the experience, but I feel more connected and loving of the child after its born, rather than while it’s in my belly. I don’t think that’s abnormal – I think a lot of women also feel that way. I still do my best to eat (somewhat) healthy (considering cravings and what my appetite will tolerate), exercise, drink a lot of water, and get good rest. I feel like I have been eating a TON lately, which is good because the whole first trimester I did nothing but lose weight. My big thing this time around is CEREAL. I eat probably three bowls a day (LOL). Last time it was french fries and potatoes – I still will always say yes to a potato in any form, but I eat so much cereal this time that I could put General Mills out of business!

Dylan is, as always, such a big help and I’m truly very thankful that he is the partner I’ve gotten to experience parenthood with. He wouldn’t let me go to the store for a case of water the other day because it was “too heavy.” Doc says my weight limit is twenty pounds. I was like, ‘Dylan, there is no way a case of water is more than twenty pounds! I can get a case of water on my own!’ We googled it and sure enough, a case of water is 26.4 pounds. So he was right – to my dismay. He’s a real stickler, but I am so very thankful – even if I roll my eyes at him when he chastises me!

EOD Thoughts: 06.09.2021

Kids are exhausting.

Need I really say more?

But it’s okay because I’m currently snuggled up with my daughter watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. I always loved Goofy growing up.

Sometimes I’m exhausted and wanting to be left alone, but once I take a breath and think about the bigger picture, I’m back on my mom A-game. We all have those days- hell, maybe even weeks! Being a human is hard and no one truly has it figured out.

But life is good and I’m embracing my time on this earth. I’ve been trying to live my life without worrying about the things that I don’t yet need to worry about.

Welcome to Between the Lens…

I’ve gained quite a new following since I’ve introduced myself to my readers, so I figured I’d go ahead and reach out to some of you that have recently started following my page… This post is for you!

First off, thanks for following! I’ve been posting on this blog since February of 2018. I haven’t always been consistent on when I post new content, but I don’t like to force my writing or write about things that I don’t take an interest in. So I may go offline for a bit, but I’ll always return. I’m constantly looking for inspiration out in the world, and when I find it, I always make my way back to put it into words.

What kind of content do you share?

I use WordPress as a journal, of sorts. Sometimes I vent about life’s mishaps and sometimes I write abstract about nothing in particular. I have a broad life view and I like to use words in an experimental and creative way.

When I was a young girl, my sister and I were taken from the custody of our mother, and taken to live with our five cousins, aunt, and uncle. I was raised alongside my cousins in a big, blended family. I like to write about my experiences of trauma, heartache, and growth throughout this period of my life, so you’ll also find many posts speaking about addiction and its impact on my family, motivation tips to move past family hindrance, and how that time in my life changed who I am today. I also talk a lot about reflection – something that I do a lot. I believe it’s vital to becoming the person you think that you truly are. Because a lot of the time, you may not be the person that you’d like to be, or even that you thought you were. Honest and deep reflection into yourself and the relationships that you have with others is important for growth.

I’ve always been a lover of words. When I was a young girl, I spent a lot of time with my grandma. She was (still is!) the best because she filled our lives with the love of drawing, writing, painting, and creative play. She would sit back and let us express ourselves in a way that we chose. I’d ask her for a notebook and she would head to her bedroom and pull out a tote that would be FULL of new, clean notebooks, new markers, colored pencils, drawing books, canvases, paints, anything you could think of. I’d sit at her dining room table for hours writing, drawing, and painting. She still has the notebooks from my childhood and she can still pull them out to this day (She is going to be 97 years old next month).

I like to write poems and abstract pieces that flow the way I want them to. The great thing about language, is that there is an endless amount of creativity that you can inject into it. The words can flow however you like them to, because, like a painting, you are the artist and you have your own style and flow you prefer.

I also have always loved research and learning new things, so I often also write up articles sharing interesting information that I’ve found. Most of these kinds of articles are linked to further information you can look into on your own if you share the same interest as I do.

I’m also a mother and am pregnant with another one – due in October around Halloween. So I also like to write about my kids and our experiences. I like to write a lot about pregnancy, motherhood, and parenting – it’s one of those difficult but rewarding experiences that are fun to write about.

So let’s chat!

I’ve made a plethora of pals on WP, and I’m always looking for more! Let’s link up and let the words flow!

Please reach out if you’re interested in partnering on some work – I’m still searching for another blogger to interview for a new series!

It’s so nice to meet all of you and I can’t wait to hear from you!

EOD Thoughts: 06.04.2021

It’s been a minute since I did one of my end-of-day reflections. There’s no time like the present.

I was previously working on another post, but it was getting too deep and required too much thought for this late at night. So I clicked SAVE DRAFT on that baby and came to write something a bit lighter.

Let’s just do a quick tally of some of the things I learned this week:

My cat will hangout with me while I work from home if I close my bedroom door so she’s forced to be in the same room as me (She hates it when I do this; she’ll sleep on my bed all day long if I leave the door open).
Scentsy products don’t actually keep their scent for that long.
I feel less confident when I feel like I’m being overlooked. I see myself through a lens of high expectation, so I want to feel appreciated, listened to, and capable. I tend to shut down when I feel like my worth is being reduced, because I see myself as an amazing employee.
Kids grow up QUICK, man. My daughter is 2 going on 16. The amount of attitude that a 2 year old is capable of flaunting would make your head spin. She brings the heat sometimes.
Sometimes you’ve got to set one goal really high and take it really slow. Success is not measured by how fast you get there, just as long as you get there.
Being pregnant with your first child is much easier. Chasing a toddler while pregnant with the second is a lot harder!

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Tonight’s Reflection Quote: