10 reasons my husband should be celebrated on Mother's Day, too. (He did not hack this blog)

This is for my husband, on Mother's Day. Because why the heck shouldn't he be celebrated, too?  (No, he didn't hack into this blog. He's just a really awesome man.)

1. Before we had our littlest baby, he totally grew in his love and dad-liness toward my oldest daughter.  If you have a blended family, you understand the challenges, and we've been so blessed with 2 older kids we adore and a little one who adores them both more than ice cream (in her own words.... that is saying something!).

2. When I was pregnant, he took me to eat lobster rolls and/or McDonald's multiple times in the same day some days.

3.  He was very gracious toward me when the epidural made me fart unexpectedly (by the way, had I known this was a remote possibility I would very likely have opted for natural childbirth again).

4. He used his stealthly charm to woo our very crotchety labor and delivery nurse into something of a groupie.  She may have fallen in love with him during that 12 hours.  She invited him to come back to help with other women's births, because he is apparently a birth coaching rock star.  This nurse-charming made my hours of labor much more lovely (can lovely be used to describe labor?).

5. He patiently endured my months-long obsessive talk about my fear of pooping on the table while delivering the baby - a seldom discussed (in polite society) fact about what's possible when pushing out a baby... I still breathe a sigh of relief each time I remember that I escaped without this dreadful occurrence.

6. When I had pneumonia and our little was a few weeks old, he stayed home from work to take care of us both.

7. When my hormones went berserk, and I cried so hard my mascara was trailing down my face in the car while we were on our way somewhere, he graciously drove me home to redo my makeup.  That will teach him to talk about riding motorcycles.

8. When I told him I really wanted to stay home full time, he supported that dream..  He supports all my dreams.  I'm full of them, you know. And I ruminate on these dreams out loud for ages as I process, which he very wonderfully soaks-in, even though he is a make-a-decision-and-don't-look-back kind of processor.

9. While I've been struggling with fibromyalgia the past few years, and I've felt like I'm not actually doing very well and any of the things on my plate, like I'm letting everything fall a little bit through the cracks, and I don't feel like a very wonderful wife or mom or homemaker or fun-person or anything.... He loves the heck out of me and makes me feel like the prettiest girl he's ever seen.  And he tells me he'd marry me all over again, just like I am.

10. He's such a way-cool dad that it makes my mothering job that much easier. And he's super hot.

Does someone in your life make mothering more wonderful?  Tell me about it in the comments or on the Facebook page!  I'd love to know!  And happy Mother's Day, friend!!!!

Does this dog make my butt look smaller?

If' you've been hanging around here much, you probably know how much I like exercise.  Like...
Not.  At.  All.

(this is obviously not an exercise picture)

I've had a time-and-a-half the past year with fibromyalgia, and exercise has ranked right up there on my list of things I'm dying to do right along with:
 * gouge my eyeballs out
 * pick up a spider without at least 3 wadded-up paper towels, and
 * dilate past 3 centimeters without an epidural.
Seriously.  I am that averse.

Unfortunately, I'm now at the age where my skinny-girl jeans (not to be confused with "skinny jeans," the cut) will not fit beauteously unless I make sure I'm not cheating on my Weight Watchers points and yes, exercise is helpful, too.

I want more energy.  My kids range in age from 4-14, and they are a million miles an hour.  My soul is only really energized when I'm "creating" and dreaming and being engaged.  And being exhausted like I have been is way-stifling.  It is totally cramping my style.

I hear exercise is energizing.  This knowledge has been around since the dawn of time, probably, but I've been ignoring it.

So I'm getting a toe in the water, thanks to our 'doodle.  I'm now dog walking.

I swear this dog is good for my figure.  He needs to go walking every day, so we go all over the place. Up to this point I've had a tiny dog whose exercise needs - I have maintained - are fully satisfied by running circles around the dining room table from time to time.   

But a 'doodle must walk. Therefore I walk.  And I don't even hate it! (I guess all the experts are right about the positive effects of exercise... who knew?)

We've been chatting a lot about happiness, and today I want to shift gears only a little, to encourage you to take good care of yourself.  (And it's not selfish.  So don't even start....)  

Most of the friends I have are not wrestling with how to do good for others or how to be generous or how to be selfless.  Maybe I just have a weirdly wonderful group of friends?  But seriously - you do a lot.  You give a lot.  And that's good.  It's what really blesses us inside our hearts the most, right? 

There is something else I know about you, though... 

If there is something that's allowed to fall through the cracks in your life, my friend, it's probably you.  And I care about you too much to sit by and say nothing.  

You have your own set of challenges that tug at your energy and your spirits.  You hide them away most days, but sometimes you peel back the layers and let a glimpse of the hurting places be seen.  

The only way I know to get past the hard places is to refuse to hide them away.  Instead, I whisper my story, because somewhere in the telling is where I'm most reminded that God is still writing good stuff.  

And there is relief from pain, and there is rest, and there is a way to choose joy.  

A goofy dog has been part of making "taking better care of myself" more fun (and more likely to happen regularly, since I hear that exercising him will make him less likely to destroy my house as well as making my butt smaller).  

Are there things you know you should be doing to take care of yourself, but you put it off, because it's not super-fun or there are so many other people who need your time and energy?  

Today, I want you to know something:  You are worth taking good care of, too.  You are worth treating gently.  You are worth the gym membership or the long walk, the time curled up with a good book, or the new journal to write down your "best thing of the day." You are worth the evening out with your husband or the morning laughing with a friend over coffee.  You are worth the nap, girlfriend.  You are worth pushing for answers to why you don't feel well.  You are worth that college course you keep toying with in your mind or that photography class you think would be great "just for fun." 

Not to get all sappy here, but...

You are precious.  And loved.  

How to ditch the winter blues. (It's cheaper than therapy!)

Come on out of the cold, friend!  It's good to talk on the yellow couch again.  What a snowy, chilly day we're having here in Maine!

My post-Christmas sale-shopping shoe collection can't take much more winter.  Honestly.  I am ready for some un-sensible shoe weather.

It's so easy to get holed-up in the house on these blustery days.  At first (meaning for about one week, and only just prior to Christmas) it's cozy, but after a while I just feel like hibernating, which is not good for a girl's energy level.

This winter I have tried something new, which I am so encouraging you to consider.  It's super-easy and way cheaper than therapy for the late-winter-blues (or blahs).

It's called:
Plan A Coffee Date

Oh my word!  Can it really be that simple, you ask?
Why yes, yes it is.

As you know, I've had several years of this very annoying, style-cramping, energy-draining, sparkle-threatening physical aches and pains and occasional mental fog.  My doc says it's fibromyalgia, but I have had people with Lyme disease tell me that the symptoms are the same, so I'll have a screening for that. It seems there are also some food allergy things that cause similar feelings, so I'm exploring all the possibilities before I feel like tossing my hands up and saying, "ok, it's fibromyalgia."

I've fought against myself daily to just do normal things. But this winter something happened.
I became tired of waiting to feel "normal" to do FUN.

The FUN and the SPARKLE got yanked from the back of my priority list by the scruffs of their necks. They cannot hide anymore.  I am a girl on a mission to live FULLY right NOW.

You deserve that as well.  Your enjoyment of simple things needs to be given a valued space in your life.

Sometimes I have "Christian Woman Guilt."  You know.... I feel like if I'm doing something fun, it's not spiritual enough.  If I'm enjoying something beautiful, or giving myself time to be filled up or nurturing my creativity, I must not be emptying myself out enough and am therefore falling short in my faith.  God doesn't inflict this on me.  It's something I do to myself, and I have to be diligent to address it.  (There is probably more to talk about on this topic, but that's for another day.)

But that's not a full picture.
There are times to pour out, to be emptied, for sure.
But God made us with a spark of creativity that I believe is breathed into us by Him as a way to enjoy life.  And times of rest and nurture and FUN are precious.

This winter I have been making time for relationships.  We need each other, you know.
In my world, COFFEE WITH A FRIEND is the new black.

When was the last time you called a friend and set up a coffee date?
How many times have you said, "Let's do coffee?" and your friend says, "Yeah, call me." And you never call?  (Caught you!)  I have done that way too many times myself.

I've been building in coffee time with my girlfriends, and the benefit to my life is enormous.  While we sit, we laugh and we ponder and we share.  My heart is energized.  In a world of too-busy women, we need to slow down and set the busy stuff aside in order to enjoy the relationships.  We need to get away from the computer screens and the smart phones and sit across the table from each other and do life.

Is there someone you've been hoping to spend time with?  Grab your calendar and make a date.

Invest in a relationship.  
Linger over a second cup.  
Take time to breathe.  

It's good for you.  And it's way cheaper than therapy.